


Peter and the Wolf

by Guede



Series: Movement in Alpha Major [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alpha Scott McCall, Alpha Stiles Stilinski, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Amorality, BAMF Stiles, Biting, Dark Comedy, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Failwolf, Human Derek Hale, Human Peter Hale, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Character Death, Multi, Nipple Play, Offscreen character death, Outdoor Sex, Pack Cuddles, Pack Dynamics, Peter Is Massively Self-Sabotaging, Polyamory, Rough Sex, Slow Build, Werewolf Allison Argent, Werewolf Chris, Werewolf Senses, Werewolf Turning, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-10 00:27:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 62,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5561773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Hale, thirty-four, shady but successful <i>human</i> lawyer, knocks on his nephew Derek’s door one night because he’s just been bitten by a werewolf.  Somehow, this ends up being a lot more awkward than one would expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Damn it, Derek, open the door,” Peter snarls.

Then he slaps his hand over his mouth and ducks his head. For an undeclared, but very much textbook misanthrope, his nephew picked a very busy apartment building to live in. He winces as a cacophony of noises suddenly assault him on all sides, gas burners and music and rattling locks, and then crowds into the doorway as much as he can. His teeth feel blunt, but he keeps one hand over his mouth anyway as he pounds the door again with the other.

“It’s your uncle,” Peter says.

The door is yanked open. Derek glowers out at him, incongruous spatula in hand. “Yeah, that’s why I wasn’t an— _Jesus_.”

Peter shoulders past the man, then stumbles nearly into an inadvertent somersault as some horrendous, earsplitting noise assaults his ears. Whimpering, he grabs at his head and charges blindly towards the source, then slaps out till it stops.

“And now you’ve broken my stereo,” Derek mutters. He slams the door. His heartbeat’s drumming a good bit faster than his voice, which is all slow sarcasm. “Why would you—you know what? I don’t care. And I don’t care why you look like somebody dragged you through a backalley, and I really, really don’t care why you’re here at eleven at night, Peter, because fuck whatever shit you’re in this time, you need to get out.”

“Can’t,” Peter mutters, slumping into some kind of padded furniture. “I’m a werewolf.”

He concentrates on the sound of his own heartbeat. At first he can’t even pick it out amid all the other clatter, but he pretends that he can. Remembers what it sounded like, flitting like a hummingbird’s when he first woke up in his office. And gradually, memory merges with reality, and he slowly manages to drag his hands from his ears.

Peter looks up. Derek is staring at him, with a phone where the spatula had been. One hand is poised over it and Peter hisses in warning, then realizes that Derek’s actually staring at the ragged, bloody hole in Peter’s shirt.

“What the _hell_ happened to you?” Derek says, blinking. “Is that a bite? Did you—did one of your psycho clients sic a dog on you?”

“They were the dog. Well. Wolf. Man. Wolf-man.” Peter shakes his head and almost loses his focus, and has to grip at the couch to force back the sounds again. And then he catches a whiff of—too many things—and sits back down to try and not throw up.

Derek exhales, exhausted and angry and resigned all at once. “Fuck. Fine, just—get up, I’ll drive you to the ER—”

“Why would I go to the damned ER?” Peter snaps. And then, before Derek can be smart with him, he yanks up his suitcoat and shirt till his nephew can see the unbroken skin of his side. Still with perfect silhouettes of dried blood where the puncture wounds had been. “What, exactly, are they going to do for me, Derek?”

“I guess check you into the psych ward,” Derek says after a second, rendering Peter’s efforts irrelevant, as usual. “Did you just say you’re a werewolf?”

Peter looks at him. Takes a deep breath, forces himself to not—to just accept it for a second, and then the muscles and bones in his body rearrange.

It’s considerably less painful than the first time that happened, when he was dragging himself down the back stairwell at his firm’s building. He thinks he’s starting to get a handle on controlling it, too; he can almost guess which part’s going to change next.

Derek throws his phone at Peter. Then scrambles backwards into the kitchen, eyes wide, stomping over a chair and a couple bags along the way, so he falls and catches himself against the counter. His flailing hand knocks over the knife block and the knives clatter out, and Peter guesses even before Derek’s eyes go there.

“Don’t—” Peter says. Growls. Fuck. He can’t change back.

He growls again, because that’s what swearing sounds like in this form, and then puts up his hand. His clawed— _fuck_. Peter stares at his claws, then snaps his eyes back to Derek. And the knife, and suddenly he’s _shifting_ and it hurts again, he can’t get a grip on it, he literally cannot feel the bones in his _face_ and—

“Do not throw that at me,” he gasps, collapsed on the floor, unwillingly smelling Derek’s carpet. He badly wants to throw up.

Derek…does not throw the knife. He does, however, bring it over as he edges out of the kitchen and back into the living room space. “Shit,” he says in a small, awed voice Peter hasn’t heard from him in years. “Shit, what the fuck was that?”

Peter gets his arm under himself and pushes up, and then grabs the couch to hold himself up. “A werewolf,” he says irritably. “Do keep up, Derek.”

“Well, that answers whether it’s still you in there,” Derek says after a moment. He backs up into the kitchen again, then runs his hand over his face, stopping to squeeze at the bridge of his nose. “Peter, honestly, what the _hell_.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, they’re sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen table with coffee. Peter’s stripped off his suitcoat and is doing his best to clean the blood off his side with Derek’s ratty excuse for a dishtowel, while Derek alternates between clutching the knife and looking at his coffee as if he wishes he had the balls to throw it in Peter’s face. Trappings aside, it’s not too different from Peter’s usual visits.

“So you’re sure it’s a werewolf,” Derek says, for the fifth time.

“Derek. I shape-shift. I had inappropriate cravings about a squirrel in the parking lot. I can smell and hear in ranges that are clearly beyond human senses, and also, this all happened after I was bitten by a giant, hairy, two-legged beastman with glowing eyes, a muzzle, pointy ears and a bushy tail,” Peter says. He drains his coffee, then frowns into the empty cup. “Also, I’m not sure alcohol has any effect on me now. Unless you were—”

“No, I gave you actual fucking booze. God knows why, it’s not like you ever do anything for me,” Derek mutters into his hand.

Peter puts the mug down. “Aside from the three parking tickets I got dismissed in the last year. And your citations for disorderly conduct. And the threatened accessory to murder charges after you managed to date a serial killer—”

Derek takes his hand off and slaps it down on the table. He half-rises in his seat, jaw set, eyes murderous, and then rolls his eyes. Sits back down. “God. Fine. So the—whatever that bit you.”

“Werewolf,” Peter sighs.

“ _Fine_ ,” Derek says. “The werewolf. Is your jailbait with the interesting inheritance problem, what’s his name, it’s weird—”

“Stiles,” Peter says. “Stiles Stilinski. His father died under suspicious circumstances in a home fire, and as he was a former sheriff, the case was investigated for possible ties to organized crime. It’s still being investigated, in fact, and so he’s having trouble getting access to his father’s estate.”

Derek raises his brow. “So you have no idea whether it was just suspicious or not.”

“I don’t know what my clients are doing when they’re _successful_ , Derek. I only see them when they’ve screwed up.” Peter pauses, then gets up from the table for more coffee. He doesn’t think that the caffeine is working either, but he needs something to do with his hands.

He hears Derek’s heartbeat speed up, and also the tiny creak as Derek’s fingers tighten around the knife handle. His nephew’s afraid of him. Not just wary, truly _afraid_.

For some reason Peter doesn’t find this as thrilling as he thinks he should. Maybe it’s because Derek is the only person he can go to at the moment, and the need to simply…to talk this out with someone, to have that acknowledgement that he’s not just facing this down in the mirror, is so thick Peter could choke on it. Maybe it’s because he has no idea how to control this thing, this transformation that’s at the root at Derek’s fear, and so he can’t even start to think about how to use it.

Maybe it’s because he might have wished his nephew would have an irrefutable basis for respecting him, but he’s never wanted to be a goddamn Hollywood monster.

“He came in for a status meeting, which went fine, and then he shut the door and he bit me,” Peter says. His hand’s shaking when he sticks the mug under the coffee machine spigot. He almost smacks it against the counter, but just in time he remembers the desk he’ll have to get around to replacing at some point, when he had a similar feeling back at his office. “He _bit_ me. He just—he changed. He didn’t look like me—”

“Yeah. Yeah, you said.” Derek’s calmed down and is looking at Peter with narrowed eyes. “He just randomly bit you.”

Peter snarls. His nephew starts sharply, but now he just looks pissed about it. The self-destructiveness is so familiar that Peter ends up being amused (and tries very hard not to let that go to hysterics).

“What were you talking about right before that?” Derek says.

“I was seeing him out, that was all. Small talk.” Peter absently rubs at his side, then catches himself. Then blinks hard, as he feels an odd shiver go up his spine. It doesn’t feel like him doing it; it almost feels like he’s watching someone else’s body react to something. He runs his hand through his hair, then presses the heel into his temple. “How to sell what’s left of his father’s house, once he gets control of it again. He wants to move to the area but he doesn’t want to live there, understandably.”

Derek hums thoughtfully. “So you were talking about where he was going to live next? Give him tips?”

“I might have offered to recommend a few realtors to him,” Peter says. He looks around the room, then frowns. He doesn’t know why he’s searching for something, let alone what he’s searching for, and frankly, he doesn’t want to look too deeply into that right now. His grip on his newly-expended senses is tenuous as is. “And fine, I volunteered the names of a few places he might like to try, to get a feel for the town.”

“You mean you hit on him,” Derek says.

“I don’t think he _bit_ me because we were flirting,” Peter snaps. Then he sinks back against the counter, grabbing onto it with both hands. He’s breathing faster and he has no idea why.

If it’s a panic attack, he thinks savagely, it is _unreasonably_ delayed. He makes himself stop, and then jumps when Derek gets up.

Derek stops halfway out of his seat, as edgy and confused as Peter is. He pulls the knife off the table and towards him, then steps back and pivots sharply to look behind himself, at the empty rest of the apartment.

“What?” he says. “What’s wrong. You’re white in the face, Peter, it’s like you’re seeing—”

“—there was somebody waiting in the hall,” Peter breathes. He’s remembering, all of a sudden. “No. I opened the door. Stiles was still in the office, I went out first, and—they _shot_ me.”

He and Derek look at each other. Then Peter grabs at his shirt. He forgets about the new strength and rips it practically off, and then ends up flinging it from him when he tries to be more careful. Then he rushes over to the table, where the scraps are. He pushes at the bloodied, torn fabric with his fingertips till he’s got it arranged and yes, right there, there’s a bullet-hole.

“You…don’t look shot,” Derek observes.

“Well, the bite healed too,” Peter mutters. “I need to—we need to look this up. There have to be—if there’s a transmission method, if it’s that simple, there has to be knowledge backing this up, there has to be enough of a population to—”

The doorbell rings. Derek’s head jerks over. Then he looks sharply at Peter, who’s dropped down to squat behind the table, stifling some—his vocal cords were not capable of that sound before, Peter thinks, such a strange, multi-pitched sound, guttural yet squeaky.

“I think it’s another werewolf,” Peter hisses, and then slaps himself. He makes frantic cutting gestures with one hand, which Derek thankfully obeys for once, and with the other he waves frantically around till Derek takes a step closer.

Then he grabs Derek’s knife-hand. He yanks Derek down on the floor, shushing viciously into Derek’s yelping face, and then pulls out Derek’s phone. Ignores Derek’s outraged grunt as he easily cracks the passcode (even if Derek’s screen wasn’t a filthy map, Derek uses the same number for everything), and then opens up a blank email so he can type.

 _super hearing shut up they can hear._ Peter nods at the door, where their visitor is now knocking loudly. _can tell it’s a werewolf their smell._

Derek presses his lips together, then pulls the phone from Peter so he can type. He keeps hold of the knife, so Peter ends up grabbing the top of the phone to keep Derek from dropping it. _is it stiles._

 _i don’t know i couldn’t tell by smell when i was human._ Then, seeing the furrow in Derek’s brow, Peter adds: _i passed out after he bit me and woke up later whole building was dark i think he just locked me in and then took the other body. he was last meeting of day._

Before Derek can type a reply, their visitor hits the door one last time and then calls out. “Derek? Derek? Hey, it’s Scott. McCall? Um, if you don’t remember—”

Derek’s brows jump. “He’s a werewolf. Him. Are you shitting me?”

Peter momentarily forgets about the phone, because Derek is getting up and Peter is cursing his family’s uneven distribution of brains and yanking him back down. “I don’t know who he is!” Peter hisses at him.

“—we, um, met at the therapy center? I was the guy with the therapy dog? And—and I kind of bought you a drink after Al ripped your coat, which I’m really sorry about, again, and then you, uh, you sort of made a pass at me?”

“Shut _up_ ,” Derek says. He grabs at his phone, then scowls fiercely at it, as if that’s a viable method of communication. Then he types something and hands the phone back to Peter.

_my court-ordered class. stupid dog, guy wouldn’t shut up about how sorry he was, but he was paying and it was a lot more than one drink._

Peter rolls his eyes. “Look, I realize this is not my normal attitude, but right now I absolutely couldn’t care less about your ridiculous love li—”

“Look, Derek, anyway, you really, really need to open the door,” Scott says.

Also, he says _obey obey obey_. Well, he doesn’t say it but Peter hears it, and feels it, and suddenly Peter is flat on his belly on Derek’s linoleum, cringing and whining, with his pathetically antisocial nephew staring at him as if he’s an alien. Which, to be fair, is not too far off how Peter feels at the moment.

“Oh, fuck it,” says another voice. Stiles’ voice.

The door blows open in a hurricane of splinters. Swearing and gasping, Derek tumbles back over Peter, and something shiny goes skittering in the opposite direction: the knife. Peter’s still on the floor but his nephew is not exactly a lightweight, and taking a concentrated lump of Derek in the kidney is a sufficient motivator to get him off his belly. Right in time to tangle up in Derek’s windmilling limbs.

“What the—” Derek starts.

Stiles and another young man step through the doorway. The second man immediately turns towards Derek and Peter, eyes wide with concern. Stiles grabs his arm without looking, and yanks him back so that they take two steps towards the bedroom door, which then breaks down and vomits out what appear to be honest-to-God commandos. All-black outfits, guns, laser sights.

None of which do them any good, Peter notes. He—is not entirely sure of what happens, given the amount of objects flying around and also the fact that he is doing his damnedest to scrunch into the kitchen cabinetry, but the end result is that he only hears two gunshots, but he does hear a sickening amount of breaking bones and several heartbeats abruptly seizing up and stopping. And the two people standing at the end are Stiles and this Scott, who look only a little disheveled.

“Goddamn it,” Stiles mutters, kicking at one limp body. “Peter, I left you a _note_. Couldn’t you just wait till I got back?”

“Back?” Peter says blankly.

Derek snorts from his position mostly under Peter, God knows when that happened. “Wait, that’s Stiles? I thought you were kidding about the jailbait comment.”

Peter looks at his nephew, and then up at the other two men. Granted, Stiles dresses like somebody imported his closet from the grunge era and sized it for somebody twice his weight, for good measure. But. “And how old’s Scott, then?”

“We’re the same age,” Scott says, frowning and gesturing between himself and Stiles. “Why?”

“Whatever. Come on, we gotta go,” Stiles says, stepping over bodies.

Peter blinks hard, then throws himself backward, forgetting that he’s already pressed up against the cabinets. “What? No. You _bit_ me, and now I’m a _werewolf_.”

Stiles stops and looks incredulously at Peter. “I left you a note! Like three pages of instructions! It’s not like I wanted to just ditch you, okay, that’s definitely not cool alpha procedure, but I had to dump a body and I figured you’d be better there—”

“I got shot in there!” Peter snaps.

“Yeah, well, I killed the guy who did it, and then let his boss know, so obviously they weren’t going to check there again, they’d think we’d be on the move. Which is why they came here,” Stiles says. He stares at Peter for another second, then slaps his hand over his face. “So you didn’t get the note.”

“Where’d you leave it?” Scott says.

Stiles shrugs. “On his desk, under his laptop.”

“Why would I look under my laptop?” Peter says.

“Because you woke up a werewolf and you’d want to look that shit up?” Stiles says, taking his hand down.

Peter laughs incredulously. And then again, out of sheer sense of the ridiculous, when he realizes that this is, in fact, his evening. “Why would I look it up _there_?”

“Yeah, when you can just drag it over to my place like you do every time you get in trouble,” Derek mutters. He gets up from the floor, dragging his hand through his hair, and then looks around as if he’s only just realizing that a gigantic curb-stomp fight just happened in his apartment.

“Oh, shit, I am so sorry about—about all of this,” Scott says, catching on. He takes a step towards Derek, arm outstretched, a look of utter, genuine concern and regret on his face. He really doesn’t look much like a werewolf. Well, Stiles doesn’t either, but Stiles at least has a deviant sort of air to him, whereas Scott looks like a fresh-faced poster boy for some nonprofit.

Shaking his head, Derek just stalks past him, far enough to see into the bedroom. “If you say, you’re gonna buy me enough drinks to make up for this—”

He trips over something. There’s a twang and a black thing whizzing through the air, and then he’s down on the ground and Scott is bending over him, and Peter smells blood, and there’s a whole apartment building of noises crashing down because Peter can’t—can’t—

It’s quiet. Just a heartbeat. Peter whimpers and curls as close as he can to it, and the body cradling his head pets a hand through his hair and down onto his neck where it just feels right. He nuzzles in closer and the person snorts.

“And people say it’d help if there was a goddamn manual,” Stiles mutters. “Only if you read—Scott? Scott?”

“Shit, shit, shit—” Scott’s chanting. “Derek—shit, don’t—no, shit—”

“You’re serious,” Derek says. He sounds odd. Slurring and wet, like he’s talking through a mouthful of water. “Are you kidding me. This… _this_ shit is what hap—”

“I’m sorry!” Scott says. “I’m sorry, look, I can just—”

“How about not killing me?” Derek snaps.

That gets through to Peter. He shakes his head, feeling muzzy, and then tries to push it out of Stiles’ grip. “Wait…what…Derek? Derek? What happened?”

“I’m—I’m gonna bite you,” Scott says. “It’ll heal you. You’re going to bleed out if I don’t. I’m really sorry, I know this is really sudden, but it’s the only—”

“Did you—Derek, _Derek_ ,” Peter snaps. He wrenches at Stiles’ grip, only to have an iron hand close around the back of his neck. Something in him just clicks, some switch, and his muscles start to go limp, but he fights against that. He’s outright panicking now, he knows that, and he really, honestly, doesn’t care. “Derek! What did you do to—”

“—you’re going to be a werewolf afterward, but otherwise you’ll be dead, and—” Scott’s going on.

“And fuck you, bite me or whatever, I don’t want to die,” Derek grunts. Sounding even fainter and more slurred.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Stiles says, and then he _snarls_ and the sound makes Peter mewl like a kitten, and his hand pinches into either side of Peter’s neck. Peter goes out like a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was initially posted and edited as I wrote, instead of my usually waiting till it's completely finished. It also was intended as a writing exercise to work on Peter POV.
> 
> 1/3/15: I changed the reference to Stiles' father to match later chapters. Missed the continuity error first time around, but that's what happens when I don't wait till the end to edit.


	2. Chapter 2

“Peter, you can never criticize my dating choices again,” Derek is saying. “Never.”

His nephew appears to be floating somewhere to the left northwest. Or underneath south. Or God, this is the worst hangover that Peter has ever, in his thirty-four years of life had—

—damn. He remembers. “Am I still a werewolf?” Peter mumbles, and tries to reorient himself, or at least figure out which limbs have his hands on them.

A kick to the hip helpfully rearranges things. Suddenly Peter knows he’s lying in the back of an SUV that recently held delicious, delicious red meat with plenty of salt, onions, salad, carrot juice, eggs, and what seems like an unreasonable amount of kale chips. The SUV’s moving, there are three other people in it, and they’re all werewolves. Also, Peter is extremely nauseated.

“Use the bucket,” Stiles snaps, and Peter’s hands automatically shoot out and close around something round and hard and plastic.

“Yeah, you’re a werewolf,” Derek says as Peter throws up. “I’m a werewolf. We’re all fucking werewolves, which is just what I wanted to do tonight.”

“I’m sorry, okay, but it was the only way—” Scott’s saying.

“Oh, for God’s sake, I don’t care that you bit me,” Derek says, exasperated. His voice muffles abruptly, but his heartbeat’s still thumping viciously away. Then his voice comes back, very loud, very angry. “What I care about, McCall, is that you _destroyed_ my apartment and left a bunch of dead people in it, and not only that, they’re commandos who carry around fucking _crossbows_ —”

“So maybe you should’ve looked where you were stepping first,” Stiles says. “Wipes in the bag, Peter.”

Peter gropes around till he encounters the bag, which has both wipes and a bottle of water. He gulps gratefully at the latter, then swabs at his mouth and chin with the former.

“Also, stop trying so hard to block out everything, just concentrate on me,” Stiles adds. “And Scott, I swear to God, if you glare at me one more time just because your stupid therapy crush is being an asshole about all of this, I will pull this car over. I will pull it over, and I’ll make you and your tall, dark and angry beta puppy walk—”

“And you got me shot! By an arrow!” Derek snaps. And then he grabs Peter’s shoulder. “And this is your fault too, Peter. You gigantic _dick_.”

Peter lifts his head and Derek yanks the bucket away, and then throws up into it. The smell is terrible; Peter recoils sharply into the side of the car, then grunts as…well, some things don’t hurt so much now. That is, they still hurt, but then the pain wicks away so quickly that Peter can’t be sure it was even there.

“And don’t break the car, it’s a rental,” Stiles sighs.

They take a sharp turn and Peter’s still so shaky that he’s glad for the way it presses him into the side. He lets the cool of the upholstery seep into him and the migraine he hadn’t quite realized he has recedes enough for him to wince at its throbbing.

Still, he thinks he might just be able to take in some of their surroundings without fighting Derek for the bucket. He feels up the side of the car till his fingertips touch glass, and then he carefully pulls himself up and looks outside.

“Scott’s ex-girlfriend lives another couple of minutes from here,” Stiles says. “We’re crashing at her place for n—I mean, the rest of the pack.”

“Don’t worry about your stuff,” Scott says in a low, soothing voice. “I know we—broke your door, and we can fix that, we’ll pay for it. But we also called the police before we went, and Stiles still has his dad’s friends on the force, and they’ll make sure nobody steals your stuff before we go back for it.”

“We’re gonna have to hit your office too, Peter. Can’t have my werewolf manual just lying around for anybody.” Stiles’ heartbeat, now that Peter can focus enough to separate them all out, is slow and steady, almost metronomic in how it never seems to waver. “Speaking of, Scott, call that guy at the security company, would you? We should be able to get the night watchman to close up the place till morning.”

Peter rests his head against the glass and lets all the pretty house silhouettes with their pretty yellow window squares blur together. His migraine seems to go down the more that he listens to Stiles’ heart. And also, he has an irrationally strong desire to scoot across the car and burrow into that regular thump-thump and discover what other embarrassingly ridiculous noises his expanded vocal range covers.

“I’ll call Jerry,” Peter mutters.

“You don’t have your phone,” Stiles says. “We checked.”

“With my client base, you don’t think I have the night security number memorized?” Peter says. He drags up his other hand and digs at his forehead and temple with its heel. He thinks—he thinks that his hearing might be getting under control, but the smell, that’s still difficult.

And the obvious instinctual changes. Well. Clearly, he should’ve grabbed that damn manual.

“Derek?” Scott says. “Derek, are you okay? Stiles, look, just—he shouldn’t still be throwing up.”

“Yes, he should, he was drinking coffee-flavored whiskey before you put him through a traumatic near-death experience,” Peter says.

“I thought you said alcohol doesn’t work on you now,” Derek mumbles. He’s stopped throwing up but is still hogging the bucket. “Then why do I feel like complete shit?”

Stiles sighs again. “Well, you’re turning into a werewolf.”

They drive in silence for a couple seconds. Then there’s the click of a seatbelt, which makes Peter wince before he finds Stiles’ heartbeat again, and Scott climbs into the back. He crouches at one end of the space—the backseat’s folded down—and his eyes are glowing red, and he’s making a strange rumbling noise that should be intolerable, given its strong resemblance to rocks rolling around in a cement mixer, but which in fact is soothing.

“What are you doing?” Derek asks, sounding slightly more curious than resentful.

“I’m really, really sorry,” Scott says. He crawls towards them, then stops when Derek twists around to get the bucket between him and Scott. Wincing, Scott holds up both hands, then puts them down again to brace against the floor. There’s something subtly different about the shape of his body when he crouches. “For the record, Derek, we weren’t going to bite you. Either of you. Or get you involved at all.”

“Well, you know, aside from hiring Peter to help me with my dad’s estate,” Stiles says. “But yeah. Really, that should’ve just been a simple service transaction. I don’t know why those assholes have to make everything so complicated, but—”

Derek snarls. That sounds a little different too, reverberating in a register of menacing that Peter is quite sure Derek didn’t possess before, whatever his anger management issues. “Look, fuck your problems, what are you doing with us now?”

“Oh. Oh, well, we’re gonna meet the rest of the pack, and then get you—I know it really sucks right now, I was a bitten too, but we have mental exercises and stuff that’ll help with that,” Scott says, straightening up. He clearly feels on much firmer footing, and almost sounds excited at the prospect. “Meditation, stretches, workouts, believe me, we got this whole turning thing down a lot better than when I was bitten.”

Night vision is much improved too, Peter suddenly notices. He can practically pick out each frayed nerve twitching in his nephew’s face.

“That’s great,” Derek finally says. “Great. So what, we have werewolf school?”

“Well, if you’re good,” Stiles says. “If you’re bad, we just get out the sensory deprivation gear.”

“ _Stiles_ ,” Scott hisses. He runs his hand back through his hair, shooting the driver’s seat a harried look. His shoulders heave, then set, and he looks back at Derek. “Um, not really. Not unless…I mean, okay, there are people trying to kill all of us now. We kind of aren’t going to let them get you, even if you…well, trust me, once you hear everything, you’re not going to want to go with them anyway.”

“Yes. About that,” Peter says. “Who, exactly, is trying to kill us? And whose fault is that? Because, _Derek_ , I’ve been practicing successfully for almost ten years now, and not once has anyone even pulled a switchblade on me.”

Stiles laughs. It’s a little less rueful, and a little more pleased, than Peter would really like. At least, than would be sensible for him to like, and God, he hopes that’s down to whatever absurd drive has him wondering whether he can get Stiles to transfer that hand from the gearshift to his head.

“Okay, yeah, our bad, that one’s on us. Although to be fair, everything I’ve heard so far, it really wasn’t that hard for them to find somebody willing to go after you,” Stiles says.

Derek shoots Peter a vicious look, and then screws his face up and drops it into his hand before Peter can even begin to address the hypocrisy there. “Whatever. Just. Who.”

“The Alpha pack,” Scott says.

They turn into a short driveway in what appears to be a relatively affluent neighborhood. Lights flick on and Peter assumes motion-sensor triggering, before he hears a positive stampede of heartbeats heading their way. He hisses and jerks backward, knocking past Derek into the back door of the car. Which is already half-open, and just yawning wider.

Peter swears and scrabbles, and then somebody grabs his arm and saves him from a humiliating tumble. He falls back against them and he and Derek stare at each other, for a brief, utterly awkward moment.

Then they look out. A redheaded woman about Stiles’ and Scott’s age is the first to react, making a disgusted noise as she peers back at them. “You bit the _lawyer_ ,” she says. “Stiles, are you serious?”

“That’s—you’re Chris Argent,” Derek mutters. “What the hell are you doing here?”

It is, in fact, Chris and his daughter, and Chris at least has the grace to look like he finds the universe as inexplicably terrible as Peter does. “Did they explain pack structure to you yet?” Chris says, equal parts pained and exasperated.

“They didn’t read the manual, and he’s a good lawyer, Lydia,” Stiles says, getting out of the driver’s side.

Lydia promptly pivots and confronts him with hands on hips. “Which is what I mean, you idiot. How is he supposed to work if he’s running around the woods with us?”

“Who’s the other guy?” says a young woman with lovely blonde curls and an uncomfortably blatant hunger in her eyes. “He’s hot. Well, the lawyer’s hot too, but I think I’m going for the eyebrows.”

“Erica!” hisses Allison Argent. She elbows the woman away, then draws a deep breath and plasters the pleasantest smile her family’s produced in generations on her face. She takes a step forward and holds out her hands. “Hi, I’m Allison. So you’re probably feeling really—”

“You’re a werewolf.” Peter looks at her, then at Chris. “And you. And…and while this explains a lot about your family—”

Chris makes a face. “That’s just me and her, and just for the last couple years.”

Derek grunts. “Oh, right, so the rest of you, you’re just plain human psychos who like to blackmail people through their kids.”

“What?” Scott says. “Wait, you know each other?”

He crawls up, winces when Derek and Peter both flinch from him, and then carefully eases past them to step out onto the drive. He and Allison sway towards each other, then pull abruptly away with identically wistful looks on their faces, while Chris presses his lips together and then glances to the side, where Stiles is. And reluctantly backs off from whatever he’d been about to do.

“Chris’ sister seduced Derek when he was fifteen, in an effort to blackmail our family into dropping a lawsuit against their father Gerard,” Peter says. He twists his arm out of Derek’s grip, and then uncontorts himself so he can get out of the car. Then promptly sits back down on the bumper as the world tilts at high speed. “Land dispute.”

“Which didn’t work, and Kate and Gerard both are dead, and we didn’t know and weren’t involved and _you_ attempted to frame me for one of your client’s murders,” Chris snaps. “Your own sister told you to back off.”

“Mom said that because she didn’t want Peter to end up in jail, not because she gave a shit about any of you,” Derek snaps back.

“And you totally didn’t mention this,” Stiles says, glaring at Chris. “You even recced him!”

Chris looks as if he is genuinely hoping his migraine will explode his skull right now. “What I said was, if you need a lawyer who’s good enough to play that dirty and who isn’t going to ask a lot of questions about your income sources, he’s a good bet. And all that other stuff wasn’t really relevant. At the time.”

“Oh, God, you’re _that_ Derek,” Allison says softly, staring at Derek. She looks utterly stricken, and sounds enough so that her father grimaces and then makes a slight movement towards her. “Scott said when he met you at the center…I didn’t think about it, there are a ton of Dereks, and he didn’t get your last name…wow, I am so sorry. This must be so awkward for you.”

Derek…actually seems a little lost for words, to the point that he’s not even angry about it. He just sits and stares blankly at her.

“Well, whatever, they’re betas now,” Stiles says, abruptly stepping forward. “Into the house, guys. We’ll get you a shirt and then talk through the rest over food.”

“Is the shirt necessary?” Erica says.

Any other day, Peter would have more than a ready response for that. But today he’s not quite feeling up to it. Perhaps it’s the glowing eyes and the fang tips peeping from behind the woman’s lips.

Stiles grins, amused, and also, showing his own fangs. He pushes through and then grabs Peter by the arm, and when Peter twists to push him off, drops that and slides his arm up to hook firmly over Peter’s neck. Peter’s head dips and Stiles’ heartbeat is suddenly thundering in his ears.

He’s cuddling Stiles again, Peter realizes. Very dimly, the way one notices the weather on the way out, while he whines and nuzzles and Stiles pets his hair, making a noise rather like a huge cat.

“The least you could do is provide the eye-candy, considering how much trouble we’ll be going through for this,” Lydia mutters. 

She steps up and even in his daze, Peter senses a threat. He flinches back, fingers clutching at Stiles’ shirt, and over his head Stiles’ purring changes to a growl with distinct warning overtones. Not in the slightest bit deterred, even though the other werewolves are all showing signs of alarm, Lydia simply bends past them and looks into the SUV back.

“Disgusting,” she says. “And we’ll have to wash this out on top of that.”

“Just get the bucket and leave the rest for now,” Stiles says, pulling Peter out of the car. His fingers card over and over again through Peter’s hair, sending a warm, loose, strangely addictive feeling down the back of Peter’s skull, along Peter’s neck and filtering into the tense knots in Peter’s back. “We’re just going to get it messy again anyway.”

* * *

Derek curls up on the couch and ignores repeated offers of food from Scott, who is looking increasingly anxious. He also ignores the shirt, the wipes for the blood smeared all over his belly, and the blanket.

“’m fine,” he finally mumbles, which Peter suspects is entirely just to keep Scott from climbing onto the couch with him.

“You were just bitten, you’re not,” Scott says stubbornly, and climbs onto the couch anyway. 

He grabs the back and briefly looms over Derek, who whimpers and ducks his head and then looks utterly baffled at himself. Baffled and furious. “What the fuck is this?” he snaps.

“Alphas,” Peter says, putting his hand over Stiles’ phone’s bottom. “Try and listen, Derek, we went over that five minutes ago.”

“If you missed something, you can just read the manual that Stiles put together,” Scott says, all comforting voice and surprisingly steely glare at Peter. “But seriously, I know how you feel. It’s like somebody took your world and tripled it, and then stuck you upside down in the middle.”

That…is actually a fairly accurate description, Peter has to admit. Thankfully, he’s saved from having to admit it by Jerry the night guard coming back to tell him everything’s been taken care of. He thanks the man, assures him that the usual donation shall be there in the morning, and then turns around, only to find a wad of something in his face. He inhales without thinking, and next thing he knows, he’s grinding his groin into the back of the armchair, pushing down on the top of it with his hands, and making sounds even he has to admit are inappropriate.

When he’s sitting in Chris Argent’s living room, trying to learn about werewolves while also covering up a murder scene in his own office, _with_ an audience that he didn’t invite, anyway. Peter now knows he’s having a reaction to his alpha’s scent, and it’s all just hormonal impulses that aren’t any different from, say, flinching at the smell of rotten eggs, but God, it’s embarrassing.

“Erica, not now, honestly,” Stiles says. 

The flannel shirt’s pushed away from Peter’s face, and then another one is substituted. This one still smells like Stiles, but it also smells like fabric softener with traces of the other people—other _pack_ members—mixed in. And crucially, it doesn’t smell like Stiles’ sweat and blood, like battle and victory, like his alpha just took on the whole world and is standing on its remains and looking expectantly down at him.

“So this—these submission urges,” Peter manages. It’s a little difficult, what with the armchair cushion in his face, but he deems it better to talk through plush until he can get control of the incredibly overblown romantic novelist who seems to have taken over his inner monologue. “Do they create hallucinations?”

He rotates his head so he can look up. Stiles looks down, vaguely unimpressed, and then looks over at a very smirky Erica again. “He can’t sit down with the FBI’s evidence storage people if he’s coming every time I cough,” Stiles says.

“Should’ve thought about that before you bit him, alpha _sir_ ,” Erica says, and lopes off to the kitchen, Stiles’ other shirt in hand.

“For the record, I inherited her,” Stiles says, shaking his head. He looks back at Peter, then jiggles the shirt. “Come on. No hallucinations, unless I’m sticking my claws in your neck—”

“ _What_ ,” Peter and Derek both say.

“—which is Werewolves 301, okay, God, we’re not going there tonight. Or tomorrow. Well, not unless you really want this to go to hell on a fucking hoverboard, and just put the shirt on before the girls eat you alive, would you?” Stiles says. He drops the shirt on Peter’s head and then walks around so that he can help pull it off and force it onto Peter’s arms. “And same for you, because in case you haven’t realized, Derek, bloody clothes are kind of a turn-on for us.”

The shirt’s a little tight, although not as much as Peter would’ve expected, given the difference in their builds. He doesn’t make any attempt to button it up, both because he doesn’t care to test its integrity and because just hanging off his shoulders, the shirt is…doing things to him. It’s not just the smell. It’s the knowledge that this is Stiles’ shirt, and he’s wearing it, and he shifts over to make room for the other man partly because he’s too preoccupied in beating off absurd imagery involving them and a cool dark comfortable place that’ll keep everyone else out.

“Great,” Derek mutters. He uncurls enough to let his feet down onto the floor, then rubs his hand over his face. Then sighs and pulls his shirt over his head, balling it up in his hand and tossing it off to the side. “Like people didn’t already think I was a psycho.”

Scott frowns. “Why would they think that?”

Derek looks at him. “Scott. We met because I’m taking court-mandated anger management therapy.”

“You’re what?” Chris says, walking in with a gun in one hand and a half-eaten sandwich in the other.

“Your fault,” Peter says, and Chris slews around, sees Stiles sitting next to Peter, and promptly chokes down his comment.

He does look murderously at Peter, who smiles back until Stiles reaches over and puts his hand over the back of Peter’s neck, and squeezes. Lightly. It’s barely a twitch, and yet, Peter’s immediately flooded with feelings of regret and worry.

“It’s not. Actually. For once.” Derek rubs his face again, then twists over and gets his elbows on his knees, and his head between his hands. “Okay. Look. If we’re really…if we’re really stuck together for life now…”

“Um, we’re pack, but that doesn’t mean we have to be best friends.” Allison eases up behind her father, then dodges quickly around him when he notices. She’s purposefully ignoring his anxious look, and manages to get up nearly into touching range of Derek by sheer virtue of being so blatantly nervous about doing it. Then she holds out a shirt. “Dad told me about what Aunt Kate did. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. And I can understand if you don’t want to be around us. Just…so this is Boyd’s, it should fit.”

“Boyd’s another beta, but he’s out right now,” Scott adds, and then he and Allison perform their mutual glance of wistful yet wary warning. “Also Jackson and Isaac, so you’ll have to meet them later.”

Derek looks between them, and then he looks at Peter, because for all their differences, they are still family. And Peter certainly wouldn’t have any compunctions about telling Derek that he’s gone insane.

Peter shrugs. Sighing, Derek reaches out and snags the shirt from Allison. He starts to put it on, then stops himself. Sighs again and grabs the wipes from where Scott left them on the table, and starts cleaning himself up. “So my last girlfriend turned out to be a serial killer,” he says. “I didn’t know, and when they came to arrest her, I punched out a cop.”

“That…kind of seems understandable,” Scott says sympathetically.

“And then they explained things and showed him the bloody evidence in her car trunk, and he punched out another cop who asked him whether she was better in bed after a kill,” Peter adds. “Also a nurse at the hospital I took him to after he was released, because the cops got their licks in as well, because he asked whether Derek was the guy who dated the Oak Killer. And a man at a local bar two weeks ago, because he asked if that was why Derek’s started picking up men instead.” 

“Still understandable, but I’m starting to see why the therapy,” Stiles says. He’s loosened his grip on Peter but still has his hand on Peter’s nape. “Anyway. So you’ve got appointments you have to make?”

Derek nods curtly, then tosses a used wipe onto the table. He pulls on the shirt and then looks sharply over as a couple disappointed sighs come from the direction of the kitchen. “Yeah, but I’m down to once a week and I just went yesterday. Why?”

“I assume he’s asking because we’re going to be lying low till the people who are trying to kill us are handled,” Peter says. He holds up Stiles’ phone so Stiles can take it back, then smiles as nicely as he can at the other man, considering he’s still spending entirely too much energy convincing himself to not put his head in Stiles’ lap. “Speaking of, my office is secured.”

Stiles smiles back, and then slings his arm over Peter’s neck. And pushes his phone back into Peter’s hand. “Good, now call in sick, because yeah, we’re going after them. Chris?”

“Yeah, I’m going.” Chris finishes off the last of the sandwich, then steps over just as Allison turns around. He gives her a tight, one-armed hug, bending over to whisper something that has—

—well, the way she sighs and pats something clipped to her belt and half-hidden under her shirt’s telling enough. But the ability to hear Chris tell his daughter that if either Hale gets fresh with her, she knows which voltage to use?

“What the hell, like I even want to touch one of you now,” Derek snaps, recoiling. Then he winces and curls up in a fetal position, covering his head with one arm.

“Chris, honestly?” Scott sighs. He sinks down by the side of the couch and puts his hand on Derek’s head, and Derek’s knotted up too tightly to notice.

“Look, you have no idea. And just because you’re—” Then Chris bites that off. Holsters the gun he’s been waving around, shoulders hunched, tight-lipped and actually, a little chagrined under all that seething protectiveness. “Yeah. Yeah, I know, Stiles.”

“Good, because after the night I’ve had, I’d hate to have to deal with this high school shit,” Stiles mutters. He flicks his fingers at his phone, which is still in Peter’s hands. “Hey. Call.”

Peter jerks and his fingers are unlocking the phone before he catches himself. “Stiles, it’s two in the morning. If I’m ill, it absolutely doesn’t make sense for me to call my managing partner and legal assistant now.”

Stiles inhales irritably and Peter finds himself fidgeting so much that he nearly drops the phone. But then Stiles just flops his head back into the armchair, free arm thrown over his face like a fainting heroine. “Oh, for…we’re nocturnal, what the hell, I’m slipping. Yeah, right, good point. So look, Chris is going out to poke around your office, because I didn’t have time to check for a trail, between getting rid of the body and finding you. Anything you want to tell him?”

“I don’t need,” Chris starts to mutter, and then sighs and visibly holds himself in place. “Okay. Peter. Any booby traps, extra guards, disgruntled clients?”

“No, Chris. I may sometimes arrange meetings outside of regular working hours for my clients’ benefit, but I am not a paranoid, homicidal survivalist,” Peter says.

“Those are called hunters now, by the way!” Erica calls. Then she bounces out of the kitchen, a few extra layers of mascara applied, and takes Chris by the arm. “C’mon, big daddy, let’s go show the night guards my new bra.”

“Jerry’s a leg man,” Peter says.

Erica grins and cocks a hip so her microskirt slides from dangerously high to critical. Peter nods a little more hesitantly than he usually would, because yes, that will absolutely work, and he thinks Jerry might appreciate this even more than Peter’s little contribution to his retirement fund, but Erica’s showing fangs again. And it might be the optical illusion of always being more critical of oneself, but he thinks they might be longer than his.

Allison, who’s been awkwardly standing off from the couch since Derek’s outburst, shoots Erica a decidedly disapproving look, which Erica, with commendable nonchalance, shrugs off as she starts to escort Chris towards the door.

“Oh, one thing?” Peter says.

Erica and Chris stop. Chris looks torn between relief at the chance to uncouple himself from Erica, and irritation at Peter’s timing. “Yeah?” he says.

“Could you get my laptop and phone?” Peter says. “Also, Stiles’ file. It’s clearly marked, should still be out on my desk.”

Chris blinks once, obviously adjusting his expectations of Peter. It looks deeply uncomfortable, and just gets more so when Peter smiles at him. “Fine,” he says. “Anything else?”

“Well, my spare suit would be nice too. It’s hanging on the back of the door,” Peter says. “And—”

“The third one’s always the kicker,” Stiles says dryly, squeezing gently at Peter’s neck. Then he snorts and slumps back in the armchair, dragging Peter down with him so Peter’s head ends up resting on his chest. His fingers slide into Peter’s hair, doubling the effect of his heartbeat, and he chuckles over Peter’s sluggish…purr, Peter might as well stop fighting that one, he can purr now. “You sleepy? I think you’re sleepy. Turning’s exhausting, so come on, let’s get you to bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read this story as initially posted, Chris said that he and Allison had only been werewolves for about a year. I had to change that to be consistent with the sequel.


	3. Chapter 3

The alpha siren effect, as Peter’s taken to calling it in his head, wears off somewhere around him being deposited in a bathroom with instructions to ‘not touch anything that lights up, anything that makes you sick when you smell it, and anything where the label isn’t in English, and _especially_ not dead classical languages.’ He is provided with a towel, a set of yoga pants, and the warning to not use up all the hot water because Jackson, whoever that is, will have a snit fit if he comes home to a cold shower.

Peter does as instructed, although he spends the couple minutes the water needs to warm up quickly examining the bathroom. It appears to be normal, although there are some bottles in the drug cabinet with handwritten labels in Latin, and he discovers a large stash of duct tape under the sink, along with a length of chain, a stack of taser replacement electrodes, and a jar of dark grey powder with no label, but which makes his fingers curl away when he reaches towards it as if there’s some sort of repulsive force.

“Oh, good, you didn’t accidentally seal yourself in the shower with the mountain ash,” Stiles says as Peter comes out. He’s sprawled on the bed, frowning at a tablet, with a gun on the bedside dresser next to him and an open folder of what appear to be news article printouts on his lap. “C’mere.”

“Do I have to do everything you say?” Peter asks.

“No, you’ll eventually figure out how to resist the alpha voice, and then we’ll just have to shoot you.” Stiles swipes at his tablet, then looks over with a faintly nasty grin. “Kidding. Well, not about the first part. But anyway, we’re a pack, we’re not a couple of guys with mindless drones. You get a say, it’s just that I’m way more awesome than you.”

Peter smiles and nods, and cautiously edges around to the other side of the bed, where he sits down. He’s not particularly sleepy, but he has to admit to feeling a little numbed by all the sudden changes and reversals of the night. Which has to be why he doesn’t mind so much being pushed around by a man a good ten years younger than him.

“If I may, I have a quest—” Peter starts.

The door bangs open. Derek stands in its place, resentfully smoldering, and then moves aside to show Scott and Allison with identical apologetic looks on their faces.

“Um, so he wanted to make sure you were okay,” Scott says, gesturing to Derek.

“Don’t get flattered, I just don’t like not knowing where you are. And now you’re some supernatural thing on top of your usual bullshit,” Derek says to Peter. He looks like he’s been through a shower as well; he still has some water clinging to his chest and hair. He’s also still grimacing and flinching at noises Peter has half-tuned out, but it doesn’t seem to be overwhelming him as he turns to Stiles. “So whatever Peter’s been telling you, I don’t give a shit and I just want to go home.”

Stiles looks hugely unimpressed. “Whatever _Scott’s_ been telling you, pack is real and you’re going to have to expand your definition of home,” he says. “Also. Your home is a crime scene right now.”

“Which is _all_ of your faults,” Derek says, gesturing expansively.

“Derek,” Scott sighs. “Listen. I know it’s been a rough night for you, but you really need to calm down.”

“Or what?” Derek snaps, whirling around.

Peter tastes blood in his mouth, and finds out that way that his fangs have dropped straight into his lower lip. He feels entirely too close to the others all of a sudden, has a blinding urge to just go in the opposite direction as far as possible, but his body is so rigid he can’t force it to move.

Stiles shoves the tablet and folder away and sits up. One hand’s on the bed, the other’s out of sight, but oddly enough, Peter doesn’t feel as if he needs to shift away from Stiles. The sense of alarm is coming from the doorway—from _Scott_. Who still looks utterly hangdog, raking his hand through his hair and blowing his breath out in frustration, but somehow he’s…he just feels strong. It’s not a scent or a sound, or anything like that, it’s just instinctive knowledge.

When Allison shifts to slip into the room beside Scott, Peter finally jars into action, but it’s to mirror her, flanking Stiles. And why Peter thinks of it as flanking, he has no idea, but as with ninety-nine percent of this werewolf business, it’s about the feel of it and it feels right. Stiles certainly seems to agree, judging by the low, warm rumble he sends in Peter’s direction.

“What are you going to do?” Derek goes on. “Are you going to make me? So what, we’re werewolves now. Well, just because you bit me doesn’t mean that—”

As he speaks he moves to push past Scott, who sighs but who resists Derek’s shoulder to the chest with more ease than Peter would’ve predicted, given Derek’s clear height and weight advantage. He doesn’t raise his hands, although Allison growls and her eyes glow bright blue.

Derek steps back, then snarls and his eyes are a surprisingly soft amber. He rolls his shoulders, then tries to push past Scott again. When that fails, his eyes narrow. He jerks his head to the side, popping his spine—Peter can’t help sighing; that’s been Derek’s move since his first growth spurt—and then shoves forward.

This time, Scott reaches up and uses his palms to push Derek back. Derek grabs at Scott’s wrist and then Peter’s yelping and yanking his legs back as a flurry of motion crashes into the end of the bed.

It quickly resolves into Derek pinned on his belly, arms twisted behind his back as Scott lies over him, snarling, with blood-red eyes and a serious enough expression that Peter starts to blurt out an excuse for his idiot nephew. But a sharp bark from Stiles shuts his mouth, and a second later Scott eases off, his face shifting to human, although he keeps his grip on Derek’s arms.

“I don’t want to make you, okay? And nobody’s going to keep you from having a life—having your life. But things are different now, and you’re going to have to get used to it, and you’re definitely—I can’t let you do anything that’ll get the rest of us hurt or killed, okay?” Scott tells Derek. He still has that _obey_ growl to his voice but it’s softened.

At least from Peter’s perspective. Derek’s pressing his shoulders deeply into the bed, even as that obviously strains his arms, and he’s biting out reluctant, but distinctly pleading little grunts.

“Just…just can you calm down and let us talk about it?” Scott says. “We can help. Not just getting used to it. We’ll pay to get you a new place, and we’ll take care of any trouble with the cops, and we’ll help with anything else. We’ll take care of you, okay? You’re pack now.”

“Derek, I don’t think they’re being unreasonable,” Peter adds, with a cautious look to both Scott and Stiles. When neither intervene, he goes so far as to bend over to try and make eye contact with his nephew. “And for what it’s worth, we _do_ need a hand with the legal issues. I’m not this good.”

“Fine,” Derek grates out. Scott promptly releases him and he pulls his arms around front, then leans on them as he massages his wrists. He stares at his hands, then flicks an annoyed look at Peter. “Fine, yeah, I get it. Just don’t promise me into anything of yours.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Every time I’ve done that has been for your own good, Derek. You would have actual prison time on your record if I hadn’t.”

“Well, you’re going to run that kind of thing by us first now,” Scott says, looking sharply at Peter.

Who edges back and then looks at Stiles. “Aww, don’t be that kind of asshole,” Stiles says. He’s affable enough, but the arm he slings around Peter’s waist is as much of a warning as it is a comfort. “Scott and I are bash bros, Peter, you can’t go around trying to split us like that. We’ve been through a lot worse, believe me.”

Derek frowns, and then gives Stiles a reconsidering look as he sits up on the bed. He absently hikes at his pants—changed to yoga as well—and Peter catches Allison hastily pulling up her eyes. “Yeah, so, about that. This pack of alphas that’s after you, so why are they called the Alpha pack and not you? Because you’re both alphas.”

“Because they’re dumbasses who need the ego boost of a special name,” Stiles says. “Also, congratulations, you were listening.”

“Stiles,” Scott mutters. He tugs the rumples out of his shirt, cracks a knuckle—Derek glances at _him_ and for all the sore temper, it’s furtive if Peter’s ever seen that from his nephew—and then drops into the chair in the corner. “Because they’re all alphas. We’re just a double alpha pack.”

“Unusual, but not unheard of. Granted, the alphas are also usually fucking each other, and Scott and I are tight but we’re totally platonic life partners,” Stiles says, and then he looks over. “Hey, where are you going?”

Allison freezes, then smiles nervously. “Oh, just—I just came over because I heard loud voices, and since…nobody’s challenging after all, I’ll just go. I don’t want to make anybody uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Derek mutters. While looking as if he’s sitting on broken glass. “Well, not at—your dad’s just kind of an asshole. He showed up for Kate’s bail hearing and trial, and he was all stay away from you guys then too, like I had anything to do with her plan.”

“He just didn’t want us tangled up any more than we already were. My grandfather was basically holding us hostage, and he was scared for me,” Allison says. She’s defensive but it seems more reflex than anything, and she looks irritated with herself when she realizes. She takes a deep breath, then stoops and looks Derek in the eye. “I’m sorry. I’ll talk to him.”

“Save me some trouble, thanks,” Stiles says. He kicks back into the pillows, towing Peter with him, and Peter’s mildly disgusted to find himself ducking his head under Stiles’ chin before the instinct to do so even chimes in. “Yeah, so Alpha pack. Bunch of asshole alphas who all killed their own packs for the power boost—”

Derek looks up curiously. Over his head, Allison looks at Scott, who smiles encouragingly at her. She doesn’t come any farther than the doorway but she settles there, arms crossed over her chest, shoulder leaning against the jamb.

“Betas and omegas can turn alpha by killing an alpha, and an alpha who kills their own beta gets more power. Granted, this also comes with mental instability and a tendency to adopt lame villain nicknames, but you probably had that anyway if you’re going that way,” Stiles explains. “So technically, they’re stronger than the average alpha.”

“But they’re really not,” Scott says firmly. “You can tell when they fight. They might travel together, but they all fight separately, they don’t cover each other.”

“We already took down one of them, no sweat, but then Deucalion—that’s their alpha of alphas, whatever, Ozymandias—got kind of smart and started hiring humans,” Stiles says.

Allison makes a face. “Be honest, Stiles, that jerk put a bounty on us, and now every scummy hunter in the region’s come in to collect. And on top of that, now he’s going after the humans _we_ work with. That’s against everybody’s code.”

“Code?” Peter says. “Don’t tell me werewolves follow chivalric ideals.”

“Hah. No. More like, we don’t randomly massacre people who aren’t in the know because that leads to FBI serial-killer task forces and things like that, which are kind of hard to work around,” Stiles says. “So, anyway, if it makes you feel better, you guys came after the owner of Chris’ favorite gun shop, Lydia’s hairdresser, and a couple of druids Scott’s buddies with.”

Derek snorts. “That doesn’t really make me feel better.”

He does look a little peaked. He’s shifting his weight from side to side, and occasionally rubbing his hand over the side of his face. And, Peter is interested to find, Derek _smells_ off. There’s a sort of sour overlay to his scent that Peter wants to associate with discomfort.

“Here.” Scott gets off the chair and takes a slow step towards the bed, one arm reaching towards Derek. He stops when Derek stiffens, but keeps his arm up. “Look. You might not like me, but let me just…hold your hand. I’m not trying to start something, I swear.”

“Physical contact with your alpha helps keep you focused till you learn control,” Stiles says, bored. And then gives Peter’s side a light squeeze.

Peter emits a sound that he is not, for the sake of his remaining remnants of pride, willing to call a squeak. Sadly, it gets Derek’s attention, and then Derek looks hard at him, and…even if it’s grudging, the times when Derek willingly seeks out Peter’s opinion are so rare that it’s hard to turn one down. And Peter is terrible at self-sacrifices anyway.

“It does seem to keep the sensory overload at bay,” Peter says.

“Yeah,” Derek says dubiously. “You look comfortable.”

“A lot better than those stuffy suits, doesn’t he?” Stiles says, and then he runs his hand up Peter’s back and ruffles Peter’s hair. “Not that I didn’t appreciate seeing where my fee was going.”

Peter sputters because that’s better than admitting his cock just twitched, and wondering whether other werewolves can smell _that_. “I assure you, my rates are eminently reasonable considering the range of services I offer.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” Derek mutters. He turns back to Scott, who, deflated, is backing towards the chair, and sighs. “Okay, fine, we’ll try it.”

Scott blinks, then hastily fights down a goofy grin. He reaches back out and Derek jerks his hand away, then leans back on the bed.

“I’m not holding hands,” Derek says.

“I’d like to clear something up,” Peter asks Stiles, while those two are negotiating that. “If you’re joint leaders, so to speak, then why do I only feel a…ah, a resonance with—”

“Me? Well, I bit you, technically, you’re mine first,” Stiles says, grinning broadly. He ruffles Peter’s hair again, then drops his hand to Peter’s nape and pulls Peter forward. Waits till Peter’s breath and heart both skip, and then laughs and drops the hold. Pats Peter on the cheek. “Kidding. We’re not rapey, okay.”

“Stiles just has a weird sense of humor,” Allison says, in a very resigned voice. “Anyway, if you don’t want that pull to last, you just spend time with both of them, and it evens out.”

“So that worked for you?” Derek mutters.

Peter looks over, and Scott is sitting on the bed with one leg folded up on the mattress, and Derek’s sprawled out on his back, his head undeniably pushed into Scott’s thigh. True, Derek looks as rigid as a board and is staring pointedly at the ceiling, while Scott is holding himself like he’s got a butterfly on him he doesn’t wish to scare off. But.

“Oh, me? No, um, Scott bit me and I was…I was fine with that, so…” Allison is clearly not fine with it, but when she and Scott exchange looks, it’s in mutual agreement to change the subject. “You can talk to Jackson when he gets back, he can tell you what it’s like.”

“Okay,” Derek says. He stares at the ceiling, then frowns. “This is weird. But it’s working.”

“Who bit Jackson?” Peter asks, and then makes himself not flinch when Scott shoots him an oddly sharp look. “Is that a rude question for werewolves?”

A firm, reassuring touch skates up and down his back and Peter relaxes. And then tries not to squeak again when he realizes that’s Stiles petting him.

“Nah, Scott just takes his bonding very seriously,” Stiles says. Still running his hand along Peter’s spine, he twists over and reaches—over Peter’s lap, though he pauses with his hand centered above Peter’s groin—and retrieves his tablet and folder. “So Scott’s bitten Allison and Isaac. I bit Scott and Chris and Jackson. Lydia’s not a werewolf, she’s a banshee, and she and Boyd and Erica sort of came with my family. And I guess technically Scott did too, but we were best friends before we were pack.”

“You said you inherited them?” Peter says. Now he badly wants to purr, and to snuggle down with his head in the crook of Stiles’ neck. He never was much for that body part before but now, for some reason, it looks like the most enticing, elegant, reassuring curve in the world.

“Me and Boyd and Erica, we’re borns. We were born like this,” Stiles says. He unlocks the tablet and props it up against his thigh, and then starts perusing…what appears to be a warrant for the arrest of one Kaley Chandra, alias Kali, for charges of murder, assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, and carjacking. “Boyd and Erica were in my parents’ pack, and when my mom died, they decided to stay with me.”

“Did you kill your mom?” Derek asks. Because he has a slightly dazed look that is uncomfortably familiar to Peter, and has relaxed enough to hump his head _onto_ Scott’s thigh.

Also, because he is a self-destructive shit that Peter often wishes wasn’t the only member of their family still living in town. “Please excuse Derek, he didn’t mean—” Peter starts.

“You do that a lot. Apologizing for him,” Stiles says. His palm presses over one of Peter’s shoulderblades and Peter lets out a sigh of relief, then frowns in confusion. Stiles pats his shoulder, then pushes pointedly on it, which does clear up that, even if it’s only to replace it with more embarrassment for Peter. “You can be born an alpha, you don’t always have to kill another one. Although for the record, I qualify both ways, and no, it wasn’t my mom that I killed. Gerard Argent took her out, actually. And my dad, a couple years later.”

“Stiles,” Scott says very quietly.

In the doorway, Allison is absolutely still.

Peter hesitates halfway down, thrown by all the sudden tension, and then Stiles rubs a thumb into the hollow behind Peter’s ear. And Peter purrs, and his head thumps down onto Stiles’ lap, the part not already occupied by the tablet, and Stiles makes an irritable but fairly even-tempered noise. “What? That’s what happened, I thought we weren’t white-washing for the kiddies these days. Oh, so, the Argents historically are werewolf hunters.”

“Isn’t that…really awkward?” Derek asks. Still deep in the grips of the alpha siren effect, which on him looks very similar to the one time he let Laura drag him to a party at a local frat house and then spent the night de-stoning himself in Peter’s living room, because of course that’s why Peter answers their late-night calls.

“It got less awkward when my granddad, who was batshit insane, decided he wanted to turn into an alpha werewolf, and then make us all werewolves too, and kill us for the power,” Allison says. There’s real hurt in her voice, hurt and grief, but there’s also enough black humor that Peter decides fighting the hand stroking his hair isn’t worth it. “I guess if we’re getting that all on the table—so Gerard got side-tracked with Kate’s trial over your family, actually, and Dad and I got away. We went to Stiles and Scott for help.”

“Took a while, but we finally nailed him for murdering my mom. Legally, even! And then he had an unfortunate accident when the prison doctor mixed up his medicines,” Stiles says. He makes a deeply satisfied noise that has Peter purring even louder, then stretches his back so that his spine pops. “Anyway, we could go on and on and on here, but we’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Clearing your shit up, and then starting training. So honestly, you’d better get in some sleep.”

Derek grunts in acknowledgment. He arches his shoulders and pushes his head backwards, working out some kink, and then, when that appears to not work, abruptly rolls over onto his side. Scott makes a muffled squeak—Peter huffs in distracted appreciation, glad to see that’s not just limited to betas—and then stares as Derek shoves his face into Scott’s belly. Derek lets out another grunt, then scratches his hip, his usual pre-sleep cue, and then starts to slump.

“You too,” Stiles says. He rubs his thumb behind Peter’s ear again, then leans over so that his breath patters Peter’s face. It’s full of his scent and it vibrates pleasantly when Peter automatically stretches up into it and Stiles laughs. “Go ahead, we’ll be around in the morning.”

Come to think of it, Peter could use a nap.

* * *

Peter stares at Derek who stares back, muscle in his jaw ticking, a tinge of panic behind the incredulous anger in his eyes. “Are they serious,” Derek mutters.

The two of them are lying on their sides with heads pointed in opposite directions, but facing each other. Stiles is curled up against Peter’s back with a firm hold on Peter’s waist, while the arm thrown over Derek belongs to Scott, if Peter remembers correctly. Allison’s curled up in the far corner of the bed, over Derek and Scott’s heads, and there’s a blond boy Peter doesn’t recognize draped over Derek’s legs and snoring. Somebody’s head is leaning against the foot of Peter’s that’s hanging off the bed, and when Peter concentrates, he can sort out at least two more heartbeats in the room, and a third one downstairs.

It doesn’t feel odd and _that_ is deeply unsettling, because Peter is not and has not, ever, been one to share his bed. He’s happily seen that end more than one relationship, in fact.

Derek closes his eyes briefly, then opens them and sets his jaw. “Fuck it, I need the bathroom,” he says, because he’s not much of a talker except to inform Peter of what his latest bullheaded stupidity is.

“Well, then, why don’t you—” Peter starts, because even if he’s known for years that counseling Derek is a losing proposition, he can’t help trying. And it’s not all down to his talky superiority complex, as his sister would put it; Derek might drive him up the wall with sheer improbable clusterfucks, but he’s family.

He’s an idiot. Grunting, Derek wrenches his arm out of Scott’s grip, then nearly loses his balance as he tries to twist up on his knees. Instead he manages to kick off the young man sleeping on his legs. There’s a thud, a larger thud, and then a bunch of snarls and then howls of pain that make Peter whimper and cringe back into Stiles.

“What the fuck,” Stiles abruptly says into Peter’s nape.

Derek’s frozen, head craned around to see the damage on the floor, eyes uncharacteristically wide.

“Huh?” Scott mumbles. His arm moves back from Derek’s belly and he absently pats Derek’s hip as he sits up, hair a one-sided pouf of tangles. “Isaac? Oh, hey, Erica, don’t gnaw on him like that, I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”

“Ugh, is it morning?” Stiles mutters. He leans _in_ , so his mouth brushes Peter’s nape through the lingering remnants of a warm breath.

Peter’s already shivering, but that little touch, that nothing, it’s like a shot of pure adrenaline to the spine. His hands snap into the bed and over his jittery groan, he hears the sound of tearing fabric.

Derek’s eyes flick down to Peter’s fingers as he jerks away from Scott’s petting. “That wasn’t my fault,” he says.

Then he tries to crawl off the bed, only to run into Allison. She goes from limp lump to startled glowy-eyed werewolf in less than a second, starting up so that Derek yelps back and rakes his own claws through the bed. Also, apparently, over Scott, who hisses in pain.

Derek goes stiff again, then drops hard to the bed, on his belly with his head craned awkwardly back as Scott looks around, blinking sleepily. Scott doesn’t seem to be hurt so much as surprised, and when he sees Derek, he winces.

“Um, I’m okay,” he says, pulling up his shredded sleeve. “See? We heal.”

“Aww, are the puppies having clawing troubles?” Erica’s head pops up over the edge of the bed, and then she folds her arms over the mattress, grinning with a superhumanly large set of teeth. “Baby betas are so cute, I can never get over how funny they are.”

“Erica, seriously?” Allison says, exasperated. She looks from the other woman to Derek, who’s visibly fighting to get his disgust past his efforts to bellyrub the bed in front of Scott, and then to…Stiles, who is finally pulling away from Peter.

Stiles stretches his arms over his head, yawning, flashing fangs that cannot physically fit into a human mouth. A long, low, rumble comes from him, seeming to start somewhere in the pit of his stomach and then vibrating outwards till the walls of the house look like they’re shaking to Peter. Then he drops his arms, closes his mouth. His teeth click as he looks at Erica.

“Oh, whatever, keep all the good stuff for yourself,” Erica mutters, slinking off the bed. She gets to her feet, frowns down at the floor, and then starts kicking somebody.

The blond boy emerges over by Allison’s side of the bed, holding a wrist that’s bloody but free of obvious skin breaks. He’s older than he looked at first, probably her age. So is the man who finally starts up, snarling and swearing, and then stalks off into the bathroom with Erica gleefully mocking him about being outrun by a skateboarder.

“And that’s Jackson,” Stiles says, with a dramatic sweep of his hand. Then he looks down at Peter. He sniffs, pauses, and then gives Peter a pat on the shoulder that is far less sympathetic than it’s intended to look. “So chill, okay, it’s a common reaction, nobody’s going to hold it against you.”

“Speak for yourself, like I want to know when my uncle’s all worked up over a psychotic werewolf,” Derek mutters. He finally figures out how to get off the bed and takes a couple steps towards the bathroom, only to have Scott and Allison call out to him in alarm. “What? I need the toilet, do I have to ask permission or something?”

“For psychotic werewolves, I think we’re being pretty restrained,” Stiles drawls. “That said, you want to tackle Jackson over his morning routine, be my guest.”

“There has to be another bathroom here,” Peter says. “Derek. Be reasonable.”

Derek opens and closes his mouth. Scowls uncertainly at them, then throws up his hands and spins on his heel, and storms into the bathroom, muttering something about not dealing with this right now, and he’s a werewolf now too, and screw this Jackson.

Stiles tilts his head speculatively as he looks after Derek. “I’m starting to think we really aren’t going to have to teach him much, anyway.”

“You’re not helping,” Scott hisses, scrambling off after Derek.

“I mean, aside from getting it through his head that Erica is her own warning,” Stiles continues, as there’s a growl, a louder growl, and then Derek’s muffled voice swearing at somebody to stop looking at his dick.

“Stiles, can you just not?” Allison sighs, hurrying after Scott.

As the bedroom’s now largely emptied, Peter risks sitting up himself. It’s more than a little uncomfortable, what with the irrational behavior of his cock, but…well, clearly that’s not a secret.

“You’re cute when you blush,” Stiles says, getting off the bed.

Peter starts to deny that he is, then just writes off his dignity for the time being. He does attempt to twitch the yoga pants so that his erection isn’t sticking in the folds, but only manages to send the sensitive head swinging against one thigh so that he stumbles himself through the doorway.

Stiles watches him, amused, and then points down the hall. “There’s the other one,” he says. “Breakfast downstairs when you’re done.”

“Ah…yes, thank you,” Peter mumbles, and frantically flings himself into the bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm purposefully being vague about it, but yeah, the younger people are aged up some compared to Derek and Peter. Also, contrary to what TV and films seem to think, just getting from an arrest to a bail hearing can take weeks to months, and then to trial is even longer. So Kate could be arrested for statutory rape, and charged and tried and it could easily take a few years, and she could be out on bail for a lot of that time. I don't want to invest a lot of thought into the backstory timeline, but Stiles' mom gets killed and Chris and Allison get away from Gerard towards the end of that period.
> 
> In actual wolf packs, for the record, there isn't _just_ one alpha wolf. There's a mated alpha pair, and it's not really like the female alpha is traditionally (in human terms, which means we're already getting into trouble with anthropomorphizing them) submissive to the male just because she's the receiving partner and she's the one physically capable of nursing the babies. So I am sort of puzzled by TW's insistence that all packs have a single alpha leader.
> 
> Ozymandias - if you are not required to study English lit as part of your standard school curriculum, this is a very famous poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, often used as an example of dramatic irony and/or sonnet structure. If you are, you probably remember headdesking over the weird syntax in high school.
> 
> If anyone's curious, this is a writing exercise mainly because I'm working out some things re: how to handle Peter's POV, because my to-write list has some really heavy Peter-centric ideas and he's the character I spend the most time reworking during editing (and that's just him viewed through others' POVs) in order to keep him from coming off like a parody of himself.


	4. Chapter 4

One clumsy, but much-needed handjob, later, Peter’s feeling a little more like himself. The sensory overload has greatly lessened, and he’s actually able to put some of Stiles’ tips from the other night to use as he tracks other heartbeats around the house. He still can’t assign them to individuals—except for Stiles—but he can do that with scents. And he can pick out conversations on different floors.

“…sorry, all right? I know I should’ve told you,” Chris is saying. “I just…it was a while ago. And I don’t even know what my family was thinking. They’re all plain human to boot? It’s goddamn embarrassing on top of being disgusting. It made us a hunter punchline for a while.”

“And here I thought you were playing down the statutory rape and the obvious PTSD,” Stiles says dryly. “Embarrassing’s the word I’d pick, yeah.”

Their conversation’s accompanied by the unmistakable sizzle of bacon, but also an odd, repetitive, cracking noise. Peter wants to identify it as the snapping of bones, except that he doesn’t hear any screams, there’s not another heartbeat in the kitchen, and while Chris sounds both nervous and deeply regretful, he doesn’t sound as if he’s being tortured.

“Look, what do you want?” Chris sighs. “Do you want me to apologize to them? I’ll try—I do feel bad about what happened to Derek, but I just never know what to say about Kate and Gerard. Especially that sort of thing. It’s just…I just don’t get why they did it, and I don’t really want to.”

“You must be tired if you’re taking me for Scott,” Stiles says. There’s a pause and then that low purring from Stiles, and mixed into it, another werewolf’s purr. “Apologizing probably would go a long way towards you guys not killing each other, but mostly, I want to know that nothing else from your family history’s going to pop up. I’ve got enough shit on my plate right now. Right, Peter?”

Peter catches himself against the stair rail, only to just jump the rest of the way to the mid-stair landing when somebody sniffs above him.

“Eavesdropping, how basic,” Lydia says. She wraps her dressing gown more tightly around herself and strolls to the other end of the hall. “Although you remembered to put the seat down, so I suppose there’s hope for you.”

“I try to be considerate of others,” Peter says to her. “After all, the world is moving towards a sharing economy.”

“Well, then, try to consider that you don’t need a werewolf’s sense of smell to see that someone’s been using your vaginal jelly,” Lydia sniffs. “I know you came in on short notice, but get somebody to take you to the store and get your own.”

She disappears into a bedroom. Peter presses his lips together, then hisses as he accidentally bites himself with his fangs, which have dropped without him noticing. He rubs at his mouth, pauses, and checks his hand. Does not claw off his own cheek, and does, in fact, control his temper and go downstairs. He knows when it’s not worth it, and damn it, but he will get on top of this. He is a trained professional, he’s proven himself to be creative and flexible on top of that, and he is at least ten years older than everyone in this house, aside from Chris. He will not let them get the better of him.

“Beef marrow?” Stiles says as Peter steps into the kitchen. He holds up a slender, jiggling, greyish cylinder and Peter whines before he can help himself.

Chris has his back to them, transferring bacon and what looks like pan-fried marrow to paper towels to drain. He doesn’t even look back, just points with the spatula to the admittedly delicious, incredibly diverse offerings spread over the island.

“Kale chips are Lydia’s, Isaac gets at least one of the over-easy eggs, and you can fight Boyd for the raspberry waffles if you want to test your bone regrowth rate,” Chris says. “Also, your things are—”

“I see them. Thank you, Chris, I appreciate it,” Peter says, collecting himself. He goes over and picks up his phone, plastic-wrapped suit, and laptop. Stiles’ file is in front of Stiles, and after a moment’s dithering, Peter walks over and puts his hand on it.

“Eat first,” Stiles says, dangling the marrow right in Peter’s face.

Peter takes a deep breath. Or tries to, and Stiles flicks the marrow into his mouth. It’s raw. It’s raw, and it’s slippery and fatty and God, it’s so good. It’s so good that he barely notices the thumb wiping over his lower lip, catching some of the blood and grease that’d leaked out.

“So there was too much damage to your office and we had to put in a burglary report,” Stiles says, withdrawing his hand. “How big of a deal is your firm going to make of it?”

“Ah,” Peter says, blinking. He shakes his head and searches for a response and ends up looking at his phone. “Oh. Well, let’s see.”

Apparently, it’s more of a deal that Peter will be missing the quarterly partnership meeting. Why, he doesn’t know, considering that he’s been bringing in twice as much business as any other partner without triggering a single ethics inquiry or criminal investigation. Which, he thinks resentfully, and not for the first time, should be more than enough to get the managing partner’s nose out of his matters.

He’s trying to modulate his email to not sound too snippy to be plausibly from a sick man when something drips down his fingers. Of his free hand. Which has acquired a fork at some time. There’s a corresponding plate under the fork, containing the remains of a very hearty breakfast that Peter doesn’t remember eating, and an arm around Peter’s waist. Stiles’ arm. Stiles is curling up to his back, standing as Peter sits on a kitchen stool, and eating from another plate in between swiping at his tablet and arguing with Scott about the relative morality of stealing somebody’s ID and framing them for a hack versus blackmailing them with evidence of an adulterous affair.

“It’s her job, Stiles. She’s got kids and her husband doesn’t make that much, it’d just be mean if we got her fired,” Scott says. “The rest of her family never did anything to us.”

Also, the kitchen’s filled up. Lydia’s sitting on Jackson’s lap, tapping at a laptop and occasionally interrupting to side with Stiles over Scott, while Jackson appears to be nursing some sort of grudge involving Derek and the bacon. Derek, who is indifferent to it, is grumpily stuffing himself with waffles while Allison chatters to him about trying the homemade raspberry sauce, and Scott periodically adds another waffle to his stack. Chris is gone, and in his place a very impressively-built young man—Boyd, Peter’s assuming—is now frying marrow while Erica and Isaac snap the freshly-cooked stuff right from his tongs.

“Yeah, well, I kind of think she’ll get over being labeled incompetent faster than she will psychological fallout from blackmail, but fine, your call this time,” Stiles says, leaning his chin on Peter’s shoulder. “Do you need a doctor’s note or something?”

“No,” Peter says, a little sharply. He makes himself take a deep breath, pushes aside the faint twinges of panic over his inexplicable lapse of short-term memory, and then deliberately tilts the phone so that Stiles can see better. “That would be acknowledging that they can’t trust my word.”

Derek snorts.

“Also, out of character. I’ve never bothered before. “ Peter finishes his email and sends it off, and then turns to the latest reply from his legal assistant, who’s been much more helpful in rescheduling his calendar and proposing excuses for his other clients. “It’s nothing to worry about, it’s just internal politics.”

Stiles makes a considering noise and moves his chin higher up Peter’s shoulder, so that he’s resting his face in the crook of Peter’s neck. “You sure? ‘cause if somebody goes to your place, and you’re not home—”

“One, security wouldn’t let them get that far for anything short of a SWAT team. Two, I informed them that I’m staying with family for the duration of my illness,” Peter says, with as much control as he can muster. He thinks he’s performing fairly well considering that his body seems to be dead set on willfully flailing every time Stiles’ scent crosses his nose. “Three…a little personal space, please?”

The trio at the stove glance over, as does Jackson. Lydia does not. Scott looks up, but it’s not nearly as fraught with tension as the others’ looks; he simply seems to be curious. Allison’s distracted by Derek actually taking the syrup pitcher from her, and belatedly turns when she sees that Scott’s looking.

As for Stiles, he doesn’t even hesitate. He steps back, grinning at Peter as if Peter’s just done a circus trick for him, and then steals a piece of bacon from Peter’s plate. “Sorry, distracting? I kind of forget how bad that is for the newbies.”

Before Peter can fully unravel the levels of insult and condescension in that, Derek clears his throat. “Did you tell them you’re staying with me?” he says. “In my crime scene apartment, with the dead commandos?”

“No, Derek, I purposefully didn’t specify,” Peter snaps. Then catches himself rubbing at the side of his neck, where Stiles had been leaning. He yanks his hand down and his fingers come down on the edge of his plate, and now he’s broken the crockery.

“That’s okay, we just buy that in bulk from IKEA,” Scott immediately says.

“Well, who else would you be staying with?” Derek says. “I’m the only family member you’ve got in town since Laura moved back in with Mom.”

Even more irritatingly, Peter finds himself flushing as he looks at the plate shards and spilled food. He’s…he’s not a damn clown. He’s a person in a very difficult situation, with unpredictable parameters, and he’s doing his best and his best seems quite good, considering he hasn’t once asked if he’s crazy, if he’s dreaming, or if everyone can just leave him alone because he cannot deal with what he obviously, if he’s going to survive, needs to deal with. And damn it, but Derek is _testing_ him.

“Have you considered that I don’t share my family history with my coworkers?” Peter says acidly. “Since I have an actual reputation to keep up? Derek?”

Scott frowns. “Hey, wait—”

“Jesus, shut up, you don’t even know what he’s talking about,” Derek says. For some reason he’s relaxing at Peter’s words. “Okay, calm down, just checking. I didn’t know if you’d invented a relative again, and I am _not_ pretending to be some fucking cousin from Mexico. I don’t even speak Spanish.”

“What,” Jackson says flatly. Then he screws his face up and looks at Lydia. “Are they serious with these morons?”

“Stuff it, Jackson. Unless you’ve figured out a way to get your father to stop flipping out over all things werewolves, Peter’s our legal guy,” Stiles says, clapping his hand on Peter’s shoulder. Then he pulls the hand off, looking just a little _too_ rueful about it. He grabs his file off the counter and steps away. “Oops, forgot. Anyway, cool, get your calendar cleared and whatever, and then come find me. I want to talk about how last night’s going to affect what you’re doing with my father’s estate.”

“Do you want to learn Spanish?” Scott asks Derek, who appears to be too thrown by the genuine earnestness of Scott’s question to scowl. “Because I speak it.”

Peter…takes a deep breath. Looks at his shattered plate, then gets off the stool. He picks up his laptop and his bagged suit, and goes off to change and do some actual work.

“Just because you’re the baby doesn’t mean you get to skip out on chores!” Erica hollers after him. “That’s your one pass, freeloader! Next time you scrub the whole kitchen! Naked!”

“Could you _not_ make them think we’re all amateur pornographers?” Allison says to her.

Peter maybe walks a little faster. All right, fine, he flees.

* * *

Clothes might not necessarily make the man, but they certainly go a long way towards restoring Peter’s equilibrium. Even if he accidentally shreds his tie because somebody banged on the bathroom door and startled him mid-knot.

When he comes out, the first floor is blissfully empty except for Chris and Lydia, who are working with laptops amid various files and papers in the living room. “Stiles had to go out, he said he’ll talk to you at lunch,” Chris says without looking up.

Lydia doesn’t raise her head either, just points to a chair littered with sticky notes and Stiles’ file, which seems to have doubled in thickness since Peter last saw it. “You can have that seat. Those have the wireless password, the pack credit cards, and our pack Amazon Prime and Styx Plus accounts.”

“Styx Plus?” Peter says.

“It’s Amazon for supernatural creatures and their affiliates,” Chris says. His voice rises in irritation, and then he stabs his finger down onto his keyboard, lip curling at whatever he’s seeing to show a hint of fang.

Peter hasn’t actually seen Chris Argent in a good few years, and didn’t know the man particularly well to begin with, but it’s disorienting to see that sign of otherness. And it’s ridiculous, given how insane the past twenty-four hours have been, but seeing a man Peter once knew suddenly become something entirely different is what brings on a fresh sensory overload fit.

“Put your stuff down, sit down, breathe on a slow three-count,” Lydia rattles off. Still not looking up.

Chris actually does, and his expression is a strange mix of pity and resentment and, interestingly enough, an unsettling discomfort that makes Peter think the man might be feeling a little similarly. “Do like she says,” he orders. He watches Peter gingerly sit down where he is, some internal debate warring over his face, and then sighs. “Also, if you really need it, I can get you one of Stiles’ shirts to smell.”

“No. No, thank you,” Peter mutters. He breathes as instructed, and his head begins to clear.

He’s grateful. And then he’s irrationally bitter. Speaking of.

“Where’s Derek?” Peter asks.

Chris’ brows tick up, as if he’s in any position to judge their family. “Upstairs taking a nap,” he says. He pauses. “He said if you needed him, you’re lying.”

“My charming nephew,” Peter sighs. “No, I don’t need him. I just wanted to make sure he hadn’t gotten himself accidentally nearly-killed again. It’s a distressingly common occurrence in his life.”

“Well, that’s just perfect, that’s going to do wonders for Scott’s savior complex,” Lydia mutters. She taps a stylus against her cheek, then types with her other hand. “Also, Peter, since you’re accessible now, why on earth would you advise Stiles to not have the police union help lobby the feds? They’re one of the most powerful lobbies in the country.”

“Because it’s the FBI. They’re the ones charged with investigating police abuses in the first place, it’d hardly help to send up a red flag to them that there might be additionally fishy issues with his father’s murder,” Peter says, frowning at her. He half-notes that focusing on work also seems to push away the sensory inputs, so long as he sticks to abstract concepts and not something that involves memory. “He’s supposed to be an innocent grieving son, caught up in events beyond his control. He’s not supposed to know about lobbyists.”

Lydia snorts, and then looks up and smiles at him. It’s pleased in a way that makes Peter’s claws inadvertently unsheathe, for all that she doesn’t smell like a werewolf and doesn’t have fangs. “Fair enough. You do realize it’ll be difficult to get him to stop being sarcastic for long enough, don’t you?”

“I was planning on doing the lion’s share of actual meetings,” Peter says warily. He feels steady enough to go over to the chair, although he scoots on his knees instead of trying to get up onto his feet. It might be embarrassing, but it’s only a few yards and better that than falling on his face. The idea of showing his back to Lydia, even for a second, is faintly horrifying. “Where is Stiles, by the way?”

“Work,” Chris says curtly, having gone back to his laptop.

Peter sighs, flipping open his own laptop. “I made a point of not asking before, but seeing as circumstances have changed, just what sort of career path do werewolves have?”

“Well, provided you can learn to not maul people at night, you can have as boring a career as you’d like. But most werewolves prefer to cash in on their strengths,” Lydia says. “Jackson and I run a home-security consultancy specializing in the supernatural. Erica DJs, and pulls shifts as a bouncer when we’re not fighting anyone. Boyd manages a few clubs in the area with Isaac, and Stiles and Chris contract out for pest control.”

“Pest control,” Peter says. “I assume that’s a euphemism.”

“It’s actually not. We end up having to kill plenty of omegas just to protect our territory without having to take on other people’s dirty laundry,” Chris says, with an unjustifiably righteous glance at Peter. “He and Allison and I hunt supernatural monsters for people who prefer to have the world think chupacabras are just especially mangy coyotes.”

Logically, if werewolves exist, then there’s no reason why other supernatural creatures could exist. Illogically, Peter does not want to follow that thought through. “What about Scott?”

“He’s a therapist,” Lydia says.

Chris sighs. “She’s not kidding.”

Peter looks at them.

Hunching his shoulders, Chris waves an irritable hand at Peter. “He trains therapy and seeing-eye dogs, and also works with them at mental health centers and—he met Derek at one, don’t you already know this?”

“Honestly, Chris, at this point I assume that anything that happens to Derek has at least two layers of explanations that he’s not giving to me, either because he’s too angry or because he’s too oblivious,” Peter says. He opens up his email, makes a face at the amount that’s managed to accumulate in the whole half-hour since he last checked, and then starts adjusting the filters so everything non-Stiles related goes away. Then he stops that and reaches for that magically thicker file. “I was thinking he was there to look into Derek because of me.”

“Well, he was, because I don’t trust computer-only background checks. But he also actually works there,” Lydia says.

Peter raises his finger, then puts it down. He is not Derek’s therapist, and if nobody in this house can figure out that the screaming trust-issues sign Derek hoists over his head, then they’re all doomed no matter what he does. “Then why aren’t there any dogs here?”

“Because they can’t stand werewolves,” Chris says. “Which you need to watch for, by the way. You can manage with scent blockers but you shift even a little, those won’t work anymore, and even if people don’t know what you are, they tend to get suspicious when their dog runs away the moment you show up.”

“Good to know, thank you, Chris, for sharing,” Peter says after a moment. “Also, then why is he a dog therapist?”

“He’s not one, he’s a therapy dog trainer,” Lydia corrects sharply. “And because he’s _Scott McCall_.”

Then she slaps her laptop down and snatches up her phone, right as Peter’s asking what on earth that’s supposed to mean. Lydia flounces off, muttering about impractical moral restrictions and the ADA, which leaves Chris to Peter’s mercies.

“So the Hales have all left except for you two?” Chris says, because he is, after all, an intelligent and observant man.

Which only makes it interesting. And familiar ground, which is painfully welcome at the moment. “Why, Chris, were you not keeping track of your father’s collateral damage?”

Chris looks at Peter for a moment, eyes narrowed, hands claws-free but with fingers flexed over his knees. He’s not making a sound—not one even Peter’s new hearing can detect—but something about the way he’s holding himself makes Peter suddenly very aware that he’s on the floor and Chris is not.

Then, just as Peter is clearing the sticky notes off the chair and relocating himself, Chris heaves a sigh. “I’m sorry. My father was an asshole,” Chris says, with real, genuine feeling. And then he pauses, looking Peter over, and the way his mouth twists after that is amused and deeply, deeply sarcastic. “And to answer your question, no, because frankly, Peter, you all got off light compared to other people. Nobody died.”

“No, obviously, we’re all fine. My sister’s family absolutely weathered the media storm without an issue, I didn’t mind having your family’s name pop up every time I interviewed a new client, and Derek just suffered a horribly traumatic experience that’s damaged every relationship he’s had since then, including managing to alienate the entire family,” Peter says under his breath. 

He’s gratified to see Chris wince, but strangely, not to the point that he really wants to pursue the subject. For a second, as Chris looks like _he_ might say something, Peter seriously contemplates telling the other man to drop it. Then Chris winces again and rubs his hand over his face, and Peter breathes out a silent sigh of relief.

Peter resettles his laptop on his knees, and then juggles the sticky notes and the file for a few seconds before figuring out that he can just stick the notes _in_ the file. It’s not like his paralegal will be opening it any time soon. “Talia’s husband had a heart attack two years ago. They moved up to Sacramento for the doctors, and then he died and she never moved back. Laura and Cora went with her. What happened to your wife?”

“Well, my father sold her out to a werewolf pack she’d killed a member of, in exchange for the alpha biting him,” Chris says blandly, with just the faintest glint of extra-long teeth in his smile. “She’s dead.”

Contrary to popular belief, Peter does have a sense of tact. And he’s having problems just not accidentally stabbing off keyboard keys with his claws, let alone figuring out how to use them on another werewolf. “I heard about your father. Not the details, obviously, but that he’d been jailed for murder and had died in prison. How don’t they notice that someone’s a werewolf?”

“Because he wasn’t when he got arrested. It took a couple years, but Stiles figured out a way to reverse his shift, and even give him back his cancer,” Chris says. He clearly isn’t grieving his father’s death. He also is a fair bit more blatantly satisfied than Peter would have expected; Chris had always had a temper under that stoic face, but the vengefulness is new. “Bittens are different from borns, you can pull off that sort of thing. By the way, magic’s real.”

“Ah,” Peter says. “Right.”

Chris stops looking so satisfied and starts looking unreadably, but intensely, at Peter. He’s looking for something, even if Peter can’t tell what sort of judgment the man is trying to crowbar it into.

“Scott’s different, too,” Chris says after another moment. “He was bitten—all bittens are betas, you can’t start out an alpha if you’re bitten, you can only get that by killing an alpha. Or, very rarely, you can evolve into an alpha. It’s not really understood even by werewolves, but being one carries a lot of status in their world.”

“Well, then I’m shocked you didn’t secure his bite for your entry, and assure yourself the same treatment,” Peter mutters. It’s all useful information and he should be encouraging it, but he can’t shake the suspicion that Chris is purposefully baiting him.

Chris snorts. “It wasn’t a status thing, Peter. If somebody else bit us first, then there’s no way we could end up Gerard’s betas. The whole power transfer thing only works if you kill your own pack, not if you just kill any random werewolf. Otherwise this would all be like _Highlander_.”

“Fine, then I’m shocked you didn’t go with the strongest,” Peter says.

“Scott’s different, not necessarily stronger, and stronger isn’t always what wins,” Chris says. He taps a few keys on his laptop, then folds down the lid and leans over it towards Peter. A little blue glow is leaking into his eyes, and his voice is just short of a growl. “Listen. This is my world now, and I’m not interested in seeing it go down in flames. So what you need to understand, Peter, is that this is not your playground, and the _only_ reason everybody else isn’t on fire yet is because Stiles listens to Scott. Not because Scott’s some magical true alpha thing.”

Peter pulls his hands off his laptop before he breaks the thing. His shoulders keep shifting abruptly, from back (anger) to down (fear), and he’s biting the inside of his mouth to keep from swinging his head around. Why he both hates and fervently wishes Chris could see the side of his throat, he has no idea, but he absolutely, without a doubt, hates his confusion.

“When it came down to us taking the bite or my father getting us, Allison went with Scott because they were dating, and he was the one she trusted to help her,” Chris goes on. “And I went with Stiles, because he was the one I trusted to kill that son of a bitch.”

Chris leans a little further over the laptop. Smiles, very wide, very toothy, very much enjoying this.

Then he gets up. He stoops for a few seconds, scribbling a note on a paper, and then turns to go just as Lydia comes back in. “Need to stretch my legs, cramping,” he says. “Want anything?”

“Enough patience to deal with Scott’s inept morality,” Lydia mutters. She sits back down and opens up her laptop. “But I’ll settle for a flat white from Beacon Hills Brew. Medium, no whip.”

“Sure,” Chris says, walking out.

Lydia takes a deep breath, cracks her knuckles, and puts her hands back on the keyboard. Then she looks over at Peter, frowning.

“Peter, that is a very annoying sound,” she says. “Stop it.”

“My apologies,” Peter says. He sounds squeaky. He clears his throat, in hopes that that’ll jar it out of whimpering position, and is only partially successful. “I think…I could use a break as well. Excuse me.”

“Fine,” Lydia sighs. And then, as he gets up, she shakes her head. “You know, you should just bare throat and get it over with. At this rate you’re going to be more annoying than you are attractive, and we already have people around for that.”

Yes, Peter is fleeing. No, he doesn’t care if it’s humiliating. He just wants away from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personally, I find the whole power-transfer storyline improbable, even by the show's standards of sloppy mythology. Given how violent and incapable of actually forming functional communities the show's werewolves are (the most mentally stable werewolf, Scott, is the one who insists on being a lone wolf), nobody figured this out before Deucalion?
> 
> Also, Alpha!Stiles totally isn't going to rely on just a druid when he can learn that magic stuff himself (and there's no reason why werewolves can't do spells on their own--Peter clearly practices), and technological advances in magic practice beyond Peter's laptop are honestly not that much of a stretch. So why Stiles is the only one who thinks of researching it (and here I'm looking at law enforcement as much as the werewolves, 'cause yeah, sure, a serial killer who pulls from the occult has _totally_ never happened in RL *coughzodiackillercough*), and also, why the show makes people go exclusively to Deaton (aside from character economy, and the show's repeated inability to depict actual societies as opposed to highly-isolated individuals), I can't understand. Um, Wicca discussion forums, anybody? Also, there have been mail-order hoodoo/folk magic businesses in the U.S. since at least the 1800s. Luckymojo.com, for example, is a great informational resource I've used a lot in writing in supernatural fandoms.


	5. Chapter 5

“You’re lying on a Hello Kitty pillow,” Peter says.

“You’re hiding in a girl’s bedroom, and it’s the demon version,” Derek says. He pushes the pillow out just far enough for Peter to see that the cartoon cats have devil horns and forked tails, and then sucks it back under his head and closes his eyes. “And comfortable, and I’m trying to get used to being a werewolf, so would you turn off the lights already?”

Peter turns off the lights. Not because Derek told him to, but because…because fine, he is hiding, and he is being stupid, and they can hear his heartbeat and his breathing and that’s just perfect, he’s been reduced to his bodily functions and they are all completely out of control.

“Are you…are you having a panic attack?” Derek, eyes open again, frowns up at Peter. Then he gets up on his hands and knees, and crawls over to the edge of the bed. He looks at Peter again, then has a very complex spasm of the face that eventually settles on grudgingly worried. “Sit down before you pass out. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Well, we’re in a house with a homicidal werewolf pack that we’ve _joined_ ,” Peter gasps. And then the world tilts, and it’s really not about the fact that he can hear the baby crying three houses down.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Derek hisses, grabbing at Peter. 

He keeps Peter’s head from hitting the floor, but then doesn’t really get the hang of not hitting Peter against the bed, and it might be a mattress but it’s still enough to compress Peter’s solar plexus, which doesn’t exactly help with the lack of air. Also, apparently, werewolf health does nothing against having the wind knocked out of you.

“Okay, okay, God, why are you always so—stop gasping. Hold your breath, count to five, and then—here, stick your head here, okay, breathe _now_ ,” Derek snaps. While dragging Peter onto the bed belly-up, then climbing on top and then smushing Peter’s face against his neck.

It works.

“Are you better yet?” Derek mumbles into Peter’s neck.

“Derek, do you think that werewolf packs are really a variation on free-love communes?” Peter asks. “And don’t snort at me, I’m serious. Because why with this—this physical contact triggering—”

“Because wolves use body language a lot more than people, so now we’re wired to respond to a whole bunch of new cues. And it’s only sexy if you already like the person, being a werewolf can’t invent feelings, it’s not like being hit with a love spell,” Derek says, as if he’s suddenly an expert. “Seriously, Peter, did you not read the manual?”

Peter decides that he’s stable enough to push Derek off him. He’s not going to try and sit up yet, but he’ll be damned if he has hysterics with his maladjusted nephew blanketing him. “You haven’t been a werewolf for a whole day yet, Derek, when did you read it?”

“Okay, I didn’t get through the whole thing, but I got through the fourth chapter before my hearing got all fucked up again, and Scott and Allison have been giving me the Cliff’s Notes version of the rest,” Derek says. He pulls himself over onto his forearms, lying alongside Peter. For some reason, he still looks worried. Scowling, but worried. “What’s wrong with you? Isn’t this the kind of thing you should be all over?”

Peter is definitely not ready to answer that question. “When did you get a copy of it?”

Derek presses his lips together. He rises like he’s going to get off the bed, then grunts at something. And instead, he reaches down and rummages around in Peter’s pants pocket, and pulls out Peter’s phone. “What’s your passcode?”

Peter tells him.

A couple seconds later, Derek holds the phone over Peter’s face so that Peter can see it’s acquired a new app. The icon is an adorable cartoon wolf puppy holding a smiling crescent moon, and when Derek taps it, an odd amber glow surrounds the phone—Peter remembers Chris’ comment about magic—and then a beautifully minimalist interface pops up. Search box, category links, a tip of the day box. A link to support, which when Derek taps it, leads to a blank text message to Stiles and a new ‘Scott McCall’ entry in Peter’s contacts list.

“Well, looks like somebody put it on your phone, too,” Derek says. Obviously.

Obviously, Peter thinks, he just needs to view it all from a different perspective. Because he can’t possibly be failing this badly if he and his nephew are having a civil conversation. Derek wouldn’t hesitate to point out a fuck-up of his.

“Did Stiles get weird on you?” Derek asks. He’s oddly hesitant. “Scott said…he’s kind of…he can be kind of…”

“Actually, Stiles is at work. Doing pest control. Supernatural pest control. Whatever that means.” Peter watches his phone go away, and then watches the ceiling. “Derek. I’m only telling you this because you’re family, even if you’re my longest recurring headache, but I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Derek…does not jump on that. Derek does not criticize. Derek is perfectly silent, and when Peter risks a look over, his nephew is thinking hard about something, and it’s clearly hurting Derek to do so, but he’s got that same determined set to his jaw that he gets when he’s about to go at someone and damn the consequences. Which, for all that it is the main reason why Derek is such a headache, has some admirable points to it.

“Are you mad that you can’t figure out how to manipulate them into making you the leader?” Derek finally says. He’s actually not accusing about it. If anything, he’s matter-of-fact. “Because one, pack structure, and two, Stiles is apparently a huge badass in werewolf society, even if he dresses like a dork. Scott says that’s their other job, actually. If an alpha’s too much of an asshole, their pack calls them up and he and Stiles go and take them out, and that’s why the Alpha pack is after them in the first place. Something about competition.”

“Honestly, Derek, at this point I would settle for just understanding why everyone seems to think I’m now a dangerous psychopath.” Then Peter raises his hand. “And I’d like to point out that, while I might not be a shining example of humanity, I’ve never killed anyone, arranged for someone to be killed, or even been at a murder scene. I’ve never even been in a bar fight.”

“I think that’s probably because they’re all dangerous psychos,” Derek says thoughtfully. “I mean, they’re werewolves.”

Peter nods. He and Derek sprawl in silence for several minutes, and Peter has to admit that one benefit of his nephew’s presence is that Derek, at least, doesn’t see the point in unnecessary conversation. If it’d been his sister Laura, Peter is certain that he’d have long since lost any patience whatsoever, and just transformed and wrecked the entire place out of sheer irritation at her attempts to relate everything back to _Game of Thrones_. Which is an excellent show, but a historical fantasy allegory of modern society is still an allegory, and dragons aren’t real.

Well. That…Peter will check that later. Later.

“So this means you’re not cooking up some plan to become alpha by killing anybody, right?” Derek asks. “And before you get mad, I’m just asking. Because _we’re_ werewolves now, too.”

“Just because I have a new set of instincts doesn’t mean I’m interested in abandoning a very comfortable, very profitable life for one where I’m constantly covering up murder scenes,” Peter says irritably. “Also, thank you so much for the vote of confidence. Considering that if one took an objective look at our respective backgrounds and was asked which was more likely to commit homicide—”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Even if you’re not criminal defense, you have clients you know are killers, Peter, so get over yourself. Besides, I don’t know about Stiles, but Scott wants to start teaching me how to fight like a werewolf, and given that there are people trying to _kill us_ , that doesn’t seem like a bad idea.”

“You’re awfully comfortable with the idea of Scott being your leader, all of a sudden,” Peter says. “Why the change of heart?”

“I’m not comfortable with it. It’s just, it’s not gonna change unless I kill him, and he’s not that annoying,” Derek mutters. He runs his hand over his face and back over the top of his hair, scowling at himself. Then he pauses, looking at Peter. His brows go up. “What? So I thought about it for a whole second. They went through all that trouble to explain all that stuff about getting alpha status, it was on my mind, it was harder to not go there than to just go there and get it over with. And don’t tell me you didn’t.”

“I…actually didn’t,” Peter says, and he’s not trying to be righteous at all. He’s being truthful.

It takes a moment for Peter to work out why that realization is so disturbing. Because yes, Derek’s right, his inexperience when it comes to violent acts has nothing to do with moral misgivings, and everything to do with the fact that it’s just stupid to resort to something that might get one up on criminal charges when it’s entirely possible to achieve the same goal via legal means. Even if ‘legal’ is, admittedly, on dubious grounds.

But they’re werewolves now. And even if Peter currently feels as if he’s an adult mind trapped in a toddler’s tantruming body, that can’t last. He’ll eventually learn. And when he does, he’ll have superhuman strength, healing and senses. He’ll have access to all the powers of a world very few people know about, and he will, apparently, be able to call upon the help of a group with very little compunctions about breaking laws and lots of experience in getting away with it. He knows that, intellectually.

He’s just not feeling it emotionally, for some reason. Now that Derek’s suggested it, Peter can see the appeal of the idea. But he doesn’t feel it. In fact, when he tries to really consider it, he physically flinches away. And that can’t just be the alpha siren effect. Stiles isn’t around and this doesn’t smell like his bedroom; his scent is there, but it’s by no means dominant. And anyway, clearly werewolves can reject their alphas if Stiles and Scott can make a business out of it.

“Well, like I said, Stiles supposedly kicks ass, so probably better that way,” Derek says. He sounds deeply uncomfortable, and when Peter glances over, he gives Peter a resentful glare for offering up an implicit compliment of his own, unprompted, free will. “So, what about the Argents?”

“What about them?” Peter asks. Then he frowns and looks over at Derek. “For the last time, Derek, I don’t usually go around thinking about whether or not I want to kill people.”

Derek makes a face. “Just shut up and answer the question.”

“You realize the inherent contradiction in that.” Then Peter rolls his eyes as Derek growls at him. He’s at least starting to get used to _that_ , where other betas are concerned. “Why, is Allison growing on you? She doesn’t look anything like her aunt, thank God.”

“Also, she actually apologizes. A lot.” Derek shifts around a little, and doesn’t look Peter in the eye, and keeps his jaw so tense that he’s barely speaking above a mumble. “You know she and Scott used to date?”

“Stiles did say this was Scott’s ex-girlfriend’s house, although you might have been throwing up at that point, I can’t remember.” It occurs to Peter that Chris can hear this conversation. He meditates on that, and then decides that however strong and experienced Chris might be, there is no possible way he’d be able to kill Peter and Derek without Derek making a horrendous racket. And yes, Peter is petty. He’s absolutely not in denial about that. “If you ask me, there’s still more than a little something between them. Why, is that the issue? Because if you really want my honest opinion, Derek, nothing resolves romantic indecisiveness quicker than sexual tension with a third party.”

Derek glances at Peter, then hands over Peter’s phone. “So you should really read the part on sex and relationships, so when you’re a dick, it’s on purpose. And I’m going back to sleep now.” 

And he rolls over and does just that. Peter stares at Derek’s back, then stares at the phone. Then, very slowly, taps out his passcode. And opens up the app. His finger hovers over the categories, and then he pokes ‘Werewolf Sex.’

* * *

At lunchtime, Scott knocks on the door and calls out that the food, which Peter’s been smelling for the past half-hour, is ready, but if they don’t want to come out, he can bring some up. 

Derek starts out of a deep and apparently untroubled sleep the moment Scott speaks, and is only saved from rolling onto the floor by the fact that Peter is in the way. And the fact that Peter now heals instantly when mauled.

“You have a zillion suits, I don’t see what’s the big deal about this one,” Derek mutters as they go downstairs.

“Because I would like basic human necessities, Derek, and one of those is the ability to walk around without feeling a draft on my stomach,” Peter hisses back.

Erica’s raised brows greet them. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, it’s a great stomach. Maybe not steel abs like your nephew here, but I’d take them out a little more often, if I were you.”

“I’ll let you have some more of my flash-bomb bolts if you leave them alone for the rest of the meal,” Allison hisses, and then she shoves a platter of fried chicken none-too-gently into Erica’s gut. “And if you don’t, I’ll make sure we’re paired up for next spar night.”

“Hey,” Stiles says. He kicks back on the living room couch, because apparently they’re eating there and not at the kitchen table or island. Lydia’s still working there, but Chris is nowhere to be seen, or heard, although his laptop remains on the coffeetable. “Oh, yeah, so Chris is still being a dick?”

Scott sighs. “Can we not call him that? Even if—”

“It’s fine, Scott. Dad is actually being a jerk,” Allison sighs. She looks frustrated and slightly bitter, which is only surprising in that it’s so mild, considering her history.

What’s more surprising is that Derek looks at her, betrays the faintest twitch of sympathy along with the curiosity, and then suddenly swivels around to look at Peter. “Is that what that fit was about?” he asks. “What’d he say to you?”

“Nothing,” Peter says. He smiles as pleasantly at Erica as he can manage, at least until she hands him a plate and silverware, and then he makes sure he takes food from the side of the island that she’s not on.

Derek looks at him. More relevantly, given their current circumstances, Stiles is looking at him.

Peter fights his hunching shoulders so that he can serve himself salad, and then drops into the nearest open seat, and to hell with whoever happens to be trying to visually peel his belly off the rest of his body. “What’s the point of supernatural hearing if we all still have to update each other?” he mutters.

“I can’t hear you from five miles away, in the middle of rooting out a nixie from an abandoned swimming pool,” Stiles says mildly. He flips up Chris’ laptop with his toes, and then leans forward to enter the password. “So I put some more stuff in the file. Couldn’t before, because it was gonna require more explanation than I think your rates include, but that’s not really a problem now.”

“Yes, I did skim it.” For a moment Peter thinks about going back upstairs and getting the file. Or going back upstairs and just working through lunch. Or going upstairs and pretending to work, while actually having the next installment of what is proving to be a very long, very tortuous nervous breakdown. “I do factor in suspension of disbelief, but an entire body of inheritance law based on a form of community property I’ve never heard of is a little much.”

Stiles looks up, grinning. “Really? ‘cause I would’ve figured it was the part where Dad and I put up a bunch of magical illusions to disguise all the shit we’ve got buried under the basement floor.”

“Do you actually kill a lot of people?” Derek asks Allison.

She looks a little panicky and then glances at Scott, who looks doubly nervous. “Uh. Well. We try not to,” he says. “It’s a last resort, absolutely. Always try for the peaceful resolution first.”

“If you’re really interested, I can give you stats by year and month later,” Lydia informs them, in a tone that tells them exactly how critical such knowledge is, and how their asking for it has affected her opinion on them. “More importantly, do we have to do anything about that this week, Peter? Are they going to go into Stiles’ old house if we do something?”

“Well, I’m still reviewing the new documents, but offhand I’d say that depends on what you’re doing,” Peter says, with as much sarcasm as he can muster. He’s somewhat limited by the fact that his stomach has discovered it’s terribly, terribly empty, and one area he can’t fault the pack for is their food. “Were you planning to do anything that might make them want to reopen a suspected organized-crime homicide scene? Speaking of, this Alpha pack, what do they do when they’re not being werewolves?”

Jackson snorts over by the salad. “It’s not like a costume you take off and put back on.”

“He meant how do they pay rent,” Derek says, with a slight curl to his lip that shows off lengthened canines.

“You really want to do this?” Jackson says. “Because, dumbass, I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you. And you can’t hide behind your alpha forever.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “So I’ll just throw you through a wall now instead of later,” he says over Scott’s snapped rebuke at Jackson. “Werewolves, big deal, I’m pretty sure I still remember how to do that. I only last did it three days ago.”

“So mostly the Alphas are earning money from real estate investments they no longer have to share with their packs, but they also extort protection bribes from other packs,” Stiles says. He’s watching the Derek-Jackson interaction with a combination of lazy tolerance and an underlying, but very much engaged, calculation. “The bribes have gone down since we killed Ennis, and yeah, we thought about the real estate, we’ve been getting their rentals shut down and tenants arrested. Luckily, magic shit looks a lot like a meth lab to norms.”

“They’re hard enough up that they’re all living in the same place. Unfortunately, it’s an assisted-living center, because Deucalion is blind,” Lydia says. “Also, getting around the ADA and having him kicked out is harder than it looks. Why, can you help with that?”

“Not in the timeframe I think you’re thinking about,” Peter says, with real regret. It does sound like an interesting tactic, and he’s never been afraid to dive into a new area of law for the right client. “I was asking more because I wanted to know how they can afford this bounty they’ve put out on you. How much is that, anyway? I imagine it has to be fairly substantial, given the criminal defense fees these hunters will incur if they’re caught.”

Stiles and Lydia both blink at the same time, while staring at Peter with the same intense, expressionless face. Then, as if they’re on synched turntables, they pivot to look at each other.

“Werewolf fighting’s not like a bar brawl, you know,” Jackson is snitting. “Just wait till you get in training and get your ass handed to you.”

“Yeah, I know, I read the manual,” Derek says. He pauses to take a swig of his drink, and then grins at Jackson; his control over his fangs has certainly improved by leaps and bounds. “Hey, so whoever thought about adding in the demo videos, those were great. I think my favorite’s the one of Erica taking you out with her purse. The one with the close-up of the Gucci logo healing off your face.”

“So, this anger management therapy I heard about,” Isaac mutters to nobody in particular. “How’s that going?”

“Can we not fight when we’re eating?” Scott snaps, exasperated. “Didn’t we all agree on this? Do we have to hash that one out again?”

“He is so worth the money,” Lydia says to Stiles. She blinks again. “I mean the money it’ll take to set him up here. I’ll even pay for the wardrobe.”

“It’s _serendipitous_ , that’s what it is,” Stiles says gleefully. Cackling, he wipes his hands off on a napkin and then turns a brilliant, genuinely impressed smile onto Peter. “Great, that’s the rest of the week all set. Oh, and yeah, so my dad’s stuff. Keep working on it, but I think we can wait for the next regular update. I’m gonna be out a lot till then.”

“Before you go, could we talk? Privately?” Peter asks quickly. 

And, he thinks, quietly enough to be overshadowed by the escalating squabbling among the rest, but Erica makes a woohoo noise, damn her, and the room instantly quiets. Peter grimaces before he can help it, but makes himself keep looking at Stiles.

“Sure,” Stiles says. Oddly enough, he also looks annoyed at all the attention. “I have to go—uh, finish telling Chris to stop being an asshole, but I’ll be back before dinner. And I think you’ll be able to find me.”

“Thank you,” Peter says, and then he pointedly goes back to eating his food.

So does Stiles. And where Stiles goes, the pack seems to go, dual leadership be damned. At the very least, Scott is far too relieved to make any sort of objection merely out of pride, and just sits down and offers Derek more steak.

Derek looks reluctant about it, but at this point it’s clearly just for form’s sake, and he’s just as hungry as Peter is. He takes the meat and also adds some roasted Brussel sprouts, albeit more warily, since they come from Erica. However, she just stares a little long at his bare chest—because Derek apparently doesn’t mind just walking around in borrowed pants—and then backs off to herd a still-miffed Jackson to Lydia’s side.

“Hey, so,” Derek says. “Why does arguing smell like sex now?”

“It doesn’t, Jackson just has an aggression kink,” Lydia says matter-of-factly, typing madly away. She pauses and turns her head just enough to give Jackson a perfunctory peck on his violently red cheek, and then goes back to typing. “And McCall has a huge thing for people not backing down, Allison’s descended from generations of people who hunt things that could kill them, and Erica just likes a good fight.”

“Yeah, so, speaking of.” Erica looks at Isaac. “Boyd just texted, says he’s not back till later, and I wanna go mess with the twins’ bike again. Want to come with?”

“Stay safe, kids, and remember to put your tasers on merging disrupt,” Stiles says, not even looking up.

Scott puts his head in his hands. “We _talked_ about this. I’m going to talk to them again, remember?”

“Bike? Like a tricycle?” Derek says.

Isaac snorts, and then pulls out his phone. He fiddles with it for a few seconds, then hands it over to Derek, whose brows go up higher than they’ve risen since Peter managed to get him out of an assault charge by claiming Derek had forgotten his glasses and was legally blind without them, and had actually intended to just punch the jukebox for playing his ex’s favorite song, _You Are My Sunshine._

“Makes me miss my Camaro,” Derek finally says.

Erica and Isaac’s eyes both reset to deep, hungry envy, and it’s disturbing enough that Scott frowns and scoots closer to Derek, straightening up so that he’s looking down over Derek’s bent head at the other two.

“Oh, right, speaking of,” Stiles says, getting up. “Before I go get Chris, I gotta give you your stuff. We hit up your apartment for an overnight bag. Don’t worry, didn’t break the door down this time.”

He reaches down next to the couch and then produces a duffel bag that’s straining at the seams, which he hands over to Peter. And while werewolf strength might make nothing of the weight now, Peter can still tell that there has to be more than clothes in the bag.

“Don’t thank me, I just want to make sure your belly doesn’t feel neglected,” Stiles says. His hand drops off the bag strap, almost grazing said body part, and then he retreats, grinning. “See you soon, Peter.”

“Right,” Peter says, and reminds himself to not sniff so obviously after the man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Demon Hello Kitty is real, as in Kidrobot offered a vinyl of it at one point. Although I think the standard version's pretty set on world domination already.
> 
> As messed-up as canonical Derek is, I do think if you started with the human version, with similar emotional issues, and then put him in a situation where there are more clearly-defined rules about how to manage emotions (anchoring, body language responses), he would actually be all over that. But still, not thrilled at snuggle-time with his dodgy uncle, because dammit, I will write non-incestuous Derek _once_ (also part of the writing exercise, don't worry, still all about the Halecest here).


	6. Chapter 6

The duffel bag contains: two full suits, including appropriate ties and socks; underwear; one casual outfit; two pairs of shoes, one dress and one not; Peter’s shaving kit and comb; a couple bars of gourmet chocolate from his pantry and a box of high-end torrone from his favorite Italian import shop that he _knows_ isn’t from his apartment; and a few books. The novel he’s currently reading, plus his two favorite history books.

“So, you think they were stalking us before this?” Derek says, coming into the bedroom.

Peter looks at him. “You think they weren’t?”

“Scott stalked me around the center for three weeks before his dog got fed up with it and attacked me,” Derek says. “I’m guessing that had something to do with you, because if my life gets fucked up it’s either you or whoever I’m dating.”

“This werewolf business is doing wonders for your self-insight, Derek. Maybe we should have looked into lycanthropy as a therapeutic method,” Peter mutters, sitting down on the bed. He absently opens the box of torrone and finds a note welcoming him to the store’s monthly confectionery club. After a moment’s staring, he breaks off some torrone and eats it. “God knows you were never this aware of other people’s ulterior motives before.”

“Or I was, I just didn’t know what to do about it, and it wasn’t like I was going to ask you and get insulted.” Derek studies him for a second, then sits down on the bed next to Peter. He picks up the chocolate bars and checks the flavors, then starts to put them down. Then stops himself, and begins to hold one after another up to his nose, sniffing curiously. “So what are we doing?”

Peter blinks. “Doing?”

“You’ve got your planning face on, we’re doing something,” Derek says. He brings the bar with the pretzel bits back to his nose and sniffs deeply. “Huh. Well, he likes the same weird candy you do, he’s all over this one.”

“Derek, if you’re expecting me to—to come up with some way to lawyer our way out of what is actually _not_ a legal problem—” Peter sputters, and suddenly he’s looking at his belongings with his alpha’s scent all over them, because his alpha went and got not only what he needed but what he wanted, and _everything_ is wrong with that thought. Everything. Starting with the fact that he’s adding possessives to his nouns now, for God’s sake.

“Are you freaking out again?” Derek says, flipping the bars back into Peter’s lap. He looks both disturbed and irritated by this, and then he sighs and drags his hand back through his hair. “Peter. Seriously. I just want to know when you’re going to fuck it all up, okay? Because we’re training in the backyard and I don’t want to get arrested for beating somebody up when I actually have their permission to do that.”

The bars slide towards the floor. Peter grabs them, with his wonderful new werewolf reflexes, and then watches as his claws punch straight through the single-estate dark chocolate peppermint. “Derek. One—what you’re worried about right now is another assault and battery charge. Really. Two—two, you’re suddenly fine with all of this. This. This.”

“This…thing where we’re werewolves?” Derek says warily. He keeps looking at the chocolate that’s now slowly melting under Peter’s claws. “Well, we’re stuck here, we might as well deal with it. Why is _that_ a big deal now? Why is it no matter what I do, you always find something to criticize about it?”

“Three, I am not going to ‘fuck it up,’ Derek, because there’s nothing to fuck up,” Peter snaps. “All I’m going to do is talk to Stiles. I’m going to talk to him, and clarify our relationship to each other, because I am his lawyer and he is my client and I have ethics standards I need to at least pretend to care about and I don’t care what werewolves do, I am _not_ jumping into a polyamorous relationship with him and his little band of hyperviolent moon-chasing fiends.”

Derek stops whatever he’d been about to say and just looks at Peter for a few seconds. He’s surprisingly calm and thoughtful, and it’s unnerving. Peter never would have thought he’d be in the position of missing his nephew’s kneejerk bad temper, but he does. At least when Derek’s yelling at him, he isn’t listening to himself barely avoid hysterics.

“I know you read that section because I heard you muttering to yourself over it, but I thought you were, you know, smart,” Derek finally says. He stares at Peter for another second, then shrugs. Slaps his hands on his knees and gets up. “Whatever. So I’m going to go throw Jackson around the backyard, and see if Scott or Allison can give me any tips about that. And Erica said to tell you that if you panic vomit in her room, you can either pay for the steam cleaning, or let her take you clothes-shopping _and_ wear at least one outfit from that.”

Peter presses his lips together and looks at the melted chocolate on his hand. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and then opens them. “Derek?”

Amazingly, his nephew stops. Letting his head fall back in exasperation, every inch of him begrudging, but he half-turns in the doorway. “ _What_.”

“Doesn’t this—doesn’t any of this scare you?” Peter asks.

Derek frowns. Peter isn’t expecting an arm over the shoulder, let alone an impromptu but concise and insightful counseling session, but he thinks Derek could at least insult him. Just say something. Pretend he’s how he used to be.

“We’re stuck in Chris Argent’s house waiting for people we barely know to kill people we really don’t know, because now we’re werewolves and there are werewolf hunters and also crazy alpha packs who are after us. Also, I can’t even get out of bed without somebody bleeding, and whatever you think, I’m not _that_ much of an asshole,” Derek says. He runs his hand over the top of his head again, then sighs. “Yeah, actually, I am. But Peter, also? I’m a werewolf. And maybe this is why I’m in therapy, but seeing as there’s actually instructions this time and they actually work, I think I can at least figure this part out.”

“Ah,” Peter says. Which is obviously inadequate. And normally he wouldn’t care, because it’s not like Derek appreciates the amount of effort it takes to come up with a witty retort in some dingy county jail at three in the morning, but right now, honestly, Peter feels a little guilty he can’t do better by his nephew.

A trace of confusion goes over Derek’s face, and then, shockingly, he looks sympathetic. It’s only for a second, and then he reverts to a scowl because he’s not any more at ease with it than Peter is, but it’s there. “Look, just—don’t get anybody arrested, okay?” he mutters. “Because…I mean, Scott did save my life.”

“Right,” Peter says. He blinks hard, and then again. “Right, well, I’ll warn you if that appears to be imminent.”

Derek opens his mouth, then shrugs. He takes a backwards step, still looking at Peter, and then snorts and turns around and goes downstairs.

Peter looks at his hands for a few minutes. Then he sighs himself. He picks up the bits that’ve fallen to the floor—luckily none of them have stained the carpet—and then throws them away with the wrapper, and then licks the chocolate off his hands. And eats the rest of the torrone. He momentarily feels better. It is very, very good torrone.

And then he gets up, and he’s debating whether to check in on his work email and attempt to remember he’s a highly competent lawyer and an even more competent master of office politics, or to just throw in the towel and live up to the sick leave by curling up with a book, when someone clears their throat.

Peter jumps over the bed. Easily clears it, easily, and then is tripped up by a bizarre tingling sensation and a sudden pause in the gravitational pull of the earth.

Then he’s dumped on the floor, groaning. He might heal immediately, but honestly, the sensation of feeling his bones realign and then knit in real time is extraordinarily unpleasant.

“Peter?” Chris calls. “Peter? Goddamn it, I told Erica to take down that ward—you didn’t land on a crossbow bolt, did you?”

“Because you need to know if you can finish the job?” Peter snaps. He flails till he finds the edge of the bed, then drags himself up and looks at the other man over it. “Now what? Are you going to threaten me for being the kind of lawyer your alpha was looking for? For jumping ahead of you at breakfast? Please do tell, Chris, because if I’m going to be held guilty for something I actually have _no_ control over, I’d like to know which one it is.”

Chris looks baffled, amused, and then oddly exasperated. “I’m actually not here to threaten you,” he says.

Peter looks at the gun holstered under his arm.

“I just came from work, all right, I—fine. Here, better?” Chris says, pulling out the gun. He snaps out the clip and then empties the barrel, and then shoves all the bullets but one into his pocket. That one bullet, he tosses onto the bed in front of Peter. “Go ahead and smell. It’s not even hollowpoint, let alone wolfsbane-laced.”

“What laced?” Peter says.

“You’re _this_ jumpy and you didn’t even get around to the part about what can kill us?” Chris says after a moment. He presses his hand over his eyes, muttering to himself about hormones and young people and being too old for this shit. Grips at his face, digging at his temples, then removes his hand and looks at Peter again. “Okay, so, we covered pack structure and types of werewolves last night, and you obviously found the manual at some point, but—”

Peter inhales. Because supernatural creatures still need oxygen, and for no other reason, and he gets entirely too much in that one breath. He coughs, then grabs at his throat and coughs again. Just avoids clawing up Erica’s quilt, by snatching back the hand he was going to use to brace himself against the bed.

“So usually, it’s polite to shower afterward because we actually don’t need to be in each other’s business all the time, but Stiles said I needed to make nice with you as soon as I got back,” Chris says dryly. “And to be honest, I don’t want to keep feuding with your family, so I agreed.”

“And then had sex with him?” Peter gasps. “Or was that first? Was that what he—you know what, I don’t want to know. I honestly don’t. I cannot remember the last time I had this little interest in someone else’s sexual history.”

Chris shrugs. “Okay, fine. I’m sorry about earlier. You’re pack and even if you have a worse reputation than the succubus I ran out of town today, I shouldn’t—”

“You were married!” Peter says. 

“Or we can go back to it,” Chris says under his breath. He doesn’t sound nearly as annoyed about that as about his so-called apology. “Yeah. I was. And my wife’s been dead for two and a half years, and don’t make me explain how this works. I had enough of that when Stiles made me clear up Jackson’s and Isaac’s stupid ideas about birth control.”

“He’s your daughter’s age,” Peter says. And yes, he is fully aware that he sounds like a chest-clutching prudish ninny, right down to the cracking voice.

Chris raises his brows. “You know, it’s been a few years, Hale, but I remember you being better than that.”

Peter looks at him, and then slumps face-first into the bed. “Well, yes, because I _was_ ,” he mutters.

What that manual did, he thinks viciously, wasn’t in the least clearing up anything. No, all he got out of it was that the past thirty-four years’ worth of accumulated self-knowledge and identity doesn’t matter, because all he knows right now is that he doesn’t know what anybody wants. He doesn’t even know what he wants.

“Great,” Chris mutters, and then he takes a deep breath. “Peter, get up and come downstairs. There’s coffee in the kitchen.”

“Caffeine only works now if you add one drop of wolfsbane tincture for every eight ounces,” Peter snaps absently.

“Well, there’s tincture too, and I _will_ drag you down there if I have to, because the last thing we need is you having a nervous breakdown,” Chris snaps back. He pauses and then makes a half-frustrated, half-incredulous growling noise. “Also, Lydia went out with Stiles and Erica isn’t home either. And look, just come down, and…and I can’t believe I’m saying this to _you_ , but I’ll talk it through with you till you—you feel—less…this. Okay?”

Peter looks up. Then sighs. “Fine, why not. It can’t get any more improbable, anyway.”

* * *

“I _thought_ we rewrote that section, but if it wasn’t clear, group sex is common but it’s not mandatory,” Chris says, handing Peter a glass.

Whiskey. Peter sniffs, then sips cautiously, and has to admit that it’s as good as anything in his liquor cabinet. “No, no, I understood that. And the part about how pack bonds don’t create attractions that aren’t already there.”

“Then what’s the problem? Because there’s no way you’re really concerned over Stiles fucking me,” Chris says. He takes a sip from his glass, then frowns as outside, Allison hastily dodges a flying Jackson.

Across the yard, Derek straightens up and flicks some grass off his knee. He looks pleased with himself right up until he sees Allison frowning at a rip Jackson’s left in her shirt, and then he looks a little chagrined, before covering that up with a comment about figuring out the whole increased strength thing.

“Yeah, so, I’m glad to see you’re feeling better, but I don’t actually want to give you details, and I also don’t believe that you need to know them in order to work through whatever bullshit is going through your head,” Chris adds.

Peter had actually already shelved the question of whether that phrasing corresponds to factual positions or not, but he musters up enough energy to roll his eyes at Chris. “But it adds such an interesting angle to your warning earlier,” he says, smiling at the other man. “As we say in the law, there’s a clear conflict of interest here.”

“If you’re trying to imply I was motivated by jealousy, well, you’re not getting so far with him now, are you?” Chris says, drinking more whiskey. He winces as Jackson manages to knock Derek to the ground, only to frantically try and get back up himself as Derek chews on his arm. “Incidentally, if that’s the problem, try to remember we’ve got bigger issues than your libido.”

“I—I am _not_ even,” Peter starts, and then he snarls down his next gulp of whiskey. He does have to admit that the improved growl is a much better way to express frustration. “Just once, I’d like you people to accuse me of something I’ve actually done. Fine, we had a harmless flirtation, and I think he’s attractive and it’s coming out because becoming a werewolf apparently removes all of your social filters. But I’m not pursuing him, all right? If anything, he’s after me, with the—the touches, and the smell, and the—the thoughtful gestures—”

Chris starts to interrupt a few times, but subsides as Peter goes on. He seems a little disbelieving at first, but that gradually goes away as well, and when Peter finally finishes by downing the rest of his drink in one go, Chris’ brows shoot up.

“Well, for the record, he’s not,” Chris says. His brows stay up as Peter scowls at him. “Look, he’s just trying to be a good alpha. Okay, his sense of humor’s…something to get used to, but take it from the former werewolf hunter, you landed about the most considerate alpha you could get. Usually they just bite you and let you sleepwalk around and attack innocent people till you _have_ to go running to them.”

“So the manual’s just for us? I feel so special,” Peter drawls.

For some reason, Chris pauses. He watches the sparring people outside for a couple minutes, pursing his lips, and then looks down into his glass and he seems, if Peter’s not mistaken—and Peter’s judgment is very doubtful at the moment—a little ashamed about something.

“You know, my family’s been in this for hundreds of years, and we never thought of anything like that. It was all just…oral knowledge, and if you got lucky, you had some ancestor’s diary that you had to keep in a safe and only touch with gloves on,” Chris finally says. He sounds distant and almost detached, except for the way he’s looking at his daughter. “And it’s not much better on this side, most of the time. I didn’t realize till I came over, but so many werewolves end up in a place where getting shot’s the best thing for them, just because they have no idea how to help themselves. You might think it’s funny, but that app Stiles and Scott put together’s the biggest reason why we’re not drowning in bodies right now, even with hunters and the Alpha pack on us.”

Jackson’s lying on the ground, on his face, and is refusing to get back up. He actually curls his claws into the turf when Allison tries to tug at his arm. She tries again, then sits back on her heels, a fed-up look on her face. She crosses her arms over her chest and sighs. Then she frowns and looks up as Scott, noticing Derek’s genuinely remorseful expression—and shockingly, correctly deducing the right source—squares up and offers himself for the next go.

“I don’t think it’s funny, actually,” Peter says. “I think…I think I wouldn’t be talking to you if this was just funny.”

He can sense Chris looking over at him, but he doesn’t look back. He watches Derek stiffen and shift the tiniest bit back, hunching his shoulders the way Derek always does when they’re in public. For all his nephew’s troubles, Derek has never really relaxed into his physical advantages over others, and Peter knows that he stuck by Jennifer Blake so long partly because she refused to be frightened of him.

“Scott broke up with my daughter because he didn’t want her to feel as if she had to be with him, because he was also her alpha,” Chris says quietly. “He was the first boyfriend she’d ever had, and after she turned, he told her he didn’t think he could teach her and date her at the same time. She was pretty upset.”

“Did she need much teaching?” Peter says, blinking. “You’d been hunting them, after all.”

“It’s really not the same thing as being one, trust me,” Chris says, with a little subvocal growl of a stop sign on that tangent. Then he bends down and gets the whiskey bottle from by his foot. He tops himself up, then hands the bottle to Peter. “She didn’t really…she didn’t exactly understand what he was getting at. She thought he didn’t like her anymore, because he didn’t like what she was like as a werewolf. Stiles had to sit her down—well, honestly, he kidnapped Allison and me, drove us out into the preserve, and chained me to a tree till we listened.”

Peter hadn’t been going to have any more alcohol, but he thinks that deserves a drop or two more. “Chained you. To a tree.”

“I was kind of upset at Scott too,” Chris says, with exquisite understatement. He jiggles his glass in his hand. “Anyway, the point is, Stiles will do _that_ , especially if you cross him over Scott, but he won’t do it to you just because he feels like it. Neither of them will, they’re not like that.”

In the yard, Derek finally charges Scott after several minutes of wary circling. It’s a real, all-out lunge, Peter can tell by the look in Derek’s eyes. Specifically, the flash of panic right as Derek connects with the other man, and Scott starts to crumple under him.

And then Scott uses that to sweep Derek’s legs out from under him, then roll him underneath for a firm pin. Derek’s so startled that he doesn’t even try to break free. He and Scott stare at each other, Scott going slowly from thrilled to confused to worried, while Derek just looks blankly up at him. Then, just as Scott starts to lift himself off, Derek breaks into a broad, completely unstudied grin. Scott smiles back, completely relieved, and Peter doesn’t need super hearing or smell to pinpoint the exact moment when Derek realizes he’s in much, much more trouble than he thought.

“Thank you,” Peter says to Chris. “Honestly. That was…that was useful.”

“You’re welcome,” Chris says. 

They watch Derek pull out from under Scott, looking dazed, and promptly get broadsided by Allison, who straddles him and then lectures him about tactical positioning within a team, breathless and not doing very well at hiding her grin. Then she gets up, grabs Derek’s arm to pull him up, and tells him he’d better not go easy on her because she’s a girl. Peter has sometimes wondered why Derek’s dating partners go for _him_ , considering that a fair number of them, although clearly mentally deranged, are reasonably intelligent, but he gets an idea when Derek laughs and agrees not to.

“He looks a lot like Talia like that,” Chris says, sounding a little stiff. He takes a very long swig from his whiskey and then looks at the bottle in Peter’s hand. Then waves it off when Peter offers it, albeit with a little wistfulness. “So. Gerard and Kate.”

“Were completely beyond the pale, and I admit when I tried to set you up, it was partly out of frustration that I couldn’t do the same to them. Not for lack of trying, mind—I was willing to get as dirty as it took, but I just couldn’t find a way to make it work without taking me out too, and I was damned if I was going to let them add another Hale to their tally,” Peter says. He finishes off his drink and then caps the bottle, and sets it on the kitchen counter. “I know what they say about me, but family is something I value.”

“And I was an asshole to Derek because I was too scared to outright challenge my father,” Chris sighs. “He actually seems like he turned out okay, considering everything.”

Peter snorts. “I suppose. Aside from the court-ordered therapy, and his being banned from half the clubs in town, and also from his mother’s house when she’s got a date over.”

“He punched one?” Chris asks, looking over.

“I think the technical term is he clothes-lined him,” Peter says. “Granted, the man was trying to throw out some of Derek’s father’s things without talking to anyone first, just because he needed more sock space. A concussion and a dislocated shoulder are still tricky things to wipe off the record.”

“Yeah, well, guy should’ve picked something better than a sock drawer to be that much of a dick over,” Chris says. Then he catches Peter’s twitch—not that Peter _disagrees_ with him, or with Derek, for that matter, but finesse, and that resulting in his own sister turning him into Derek’s default minder—and he smiles. It’s not quite as toothy as before, but it’s still showing an unnecessarily large number of them. “Being violent’s not exactly a bad thing for a werewolf. You just need to know how to do it.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

Chris laughs at him. Sharp and short, while putting a heavy hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Sorry, but no. I promised Stiles I’d help you out, as older man to older man, and self-defense is better learned sooner rather than later.”

“Wait, what, now?” Peter says. He tries to shrug Chris off, and instead somehow ends up two feet closer to the back door. “You’re jok—Chris. Chris. Derek might do that sort of thing, but I—I’m—damn it, Chris, I’m a _lawyer_. I went into that so I could pay people to do this for me!”

“Yeah, well, you’re gonna learn now,” Chris says, relentlessly strong-arming Peter through the door. “Just relax and think of it like a special workout, Peter. I know you hit the gym, I saw your membership card when we got your things.”

“I _cycle_ ,” Peter protests. In vain.

* * *

Chris sighs. “You don’t actually need an ice pack, Peter, you have instant healing now.”

“Well, he just turned, he could still be having phantom pains. I had fake asthma attacks for a couple weeks after. I mean, not like I was faking, but like I didn’t have asthma anymore, but I’d still get an attack when I was stressed,” Scott says.

Derek listens attentively, and then shakes his head. “I’m good, so he should be fine. Peter, come on, get up, it wasn’t that bad. I threw Jackson a good ten yards more.”

“Go to hell, Derek,” Peter mutters into the grass. “Also, why can’t I just get a gun? Obviously we can use them, why even bother getting this close?”

“Can you shoot a gun?” Chris asks.

“No,” Derek says. “I kick his ass all the time on Xbox.”

Peter genuinely regrets buying that for his nephew. At the time, he’d hoped that it would provide Derek with a safe outlet for venting his temper, and cut down on the number of times he and the local cops would have to speak with each other at obscenely late hours. And Derek had, in fact, stayed out of trouble for a good two months, on top of actually grinning when he’d unwrapped it, and thanking Peter without his sister or his mother prompting him.

“I think we’d better stop anyway,” Allison says. “It’s almost dinnertime, and it’s Erica’s and my turn to cook. So you know what that means.”

Scott sighs. “I keep asking Stiles to talk to her, but he just complained that I was stifling her creativity. Also, apparently there’s a real, actual food wang competition and Erica placed third last year with that casserole.”

“Is she even back?” Derek asks. “I don’t smell or hear her. Do you want me to just do something?”

“Oh…oh, sure!” Allison says, sounding like an aural sunbeam. “That’d be great, thanks.”

“Fine, Peter, we’ll do it your way,” Chris says, and then Peter’s being heaved over a shoulder.

They pass Boyd on the way up the stairs. Peter, who is actually attempting to get down onto his own feet, is a little slow and only manages to slap Boyd’s phone after he’s snapped the photo and sent it.

“Erica’s gonna want to see,” Boyd says, shrugging.

“Erica is going to be on patrol every rainy night this month for missing her turn to cook,” Chris snarls, and Boyd somehow vanishes behind an ottoman that is a fourth his size.

By the time Peter gets out of Chris’ grip, they’re in the bedroom Peter spent the last night in. Chris lets Peter flop gracelessly onto the mattress, then pivots in the same motion and heads for the bathroom. A few minutes later, Peter hears the shower go on.

Peter rolls over so he’s not crushing his own arm, and then decides there’s no real hurry to get up. He can hear the other shower going, too, and while he wouldn’t rule out there being a third full bath—Chris has a very nice house, he has to admit—he thinks he can put up with being sweaty, muddy, and grass-stained for a little longer. And aching. Damn their claims about healing, that last throw had _hurt_.

He closes his eyes. When he opens them, Stiles is staring down at him.

“Hi…and okay, let’s not claw off our own face here, it’s a such a nice one,” Stiles says, brows flicking up, hands going down as Peter flails. He slaps Peter’s wrists to the bed, holds them for a second, and then lets go.

“Why is it I can hear the argument next door but I can’t tell you’re coming?” Peter says irritably.

Stiles blinks, and then looks a little embarrassed. He digs around in his pocket and pulls out some sort of charm, tossing it onto the dresser. 

The moment it leaves his hand, his scent and heartbeat slam into Peter like a concrete wall. Peter sucks in air, drowning anyway. He grips at the bed and he knows he’s dragging up strips with his claws, but he honestly doesn’t give a damn. He’s completely lost, and he doesn’t care about that either. For a second, for just one second, he wants to stay like that forever.

When Peter is rational again, he’s still on the bed. The ripped comforter’s sprayed down feathers all over him and more are floating in the air, wafting about as he smashes his face into Stiles’ neck, one hand firmly knotted in the front of Stiles’ shirt, while Stiles runs cool, firm fingers through his hair.

It still feels damnably good, but Peter can think around it. He works very hard to not just flee to the other side of the bed like some startled animal, and takes a deep breath.

Chokes on a feather, and that just about clears the rest of his head. “Stiles,” he says. “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

“Uh, no, all evidence points to you do. The whole lie detector heartbeat thing, in case you’ve gotten there, is easy to work around, but you can’t really fake all your bodily reactions, short of a glamour,” Stiles says, while easing his shoulder away from Peter’s head. He keeps his hand in Peter’s hair till Peter gets his arms under himself, then gives it a light pat as he straightens up. “But I get what you’re saying. I’ll be honest, I was kind of looking forward to really energetic victory sex on your desk after we got my dad’s house back, but I can deal.”

While Stiles is talking, he’s stripping. Not his clothes, except for the flannel over-shirt he’s got on—in short sleeves it’s considerably more obvious that he’s not merely a lanky, geeky youth—but things like knives, a gun, more charms. He walks to and forth around the room, stowing each thing in a specific location, and generally just looks like this is, in fact, not a big issue for him.

“My desk?” Peter says.

“Yeah, your giant Edwardian porno monster in your office, which I was going to pay to have fixed anyway, not just because it looks like it’s really got room for a good, hard ride,” Stiles says, putting away some bullets. “You don’t think I kept sitting on it because it was more comfy than your chairs, did you?”

Peter shakes his head, then presses the heel of his hand to his temple. “I…honestly, I thought that was because you were trying to see over it and stare me into getting hard.”

“Well, that too,” Stiles says cheerfully. “You were fun to flirt with, gotta say. Too bad about those ethics rules, huh?”

“I refuse to testify as to their state before, but only a fool would pretend they weren’t well and truly blown now,” Peter mutters, half to himself. He pulls himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. “So we’re not having sex.”

“Uh, no?” Stiles says, looking over. He frowns. “Did somebody say something? Because we joke, yeah, but they shouldn’t actually fuck you around like that.”

“Oh, no, no, it’s just…well, you were flirting back,” Peter says.

“Yeah, totally, but if you’re not into it after the werewolf disclosure, well, wouldn’t be the first time.” Stiles is still looking at Peter, and his gaze is considerably shrewder, and more sober, than his casual tone. He pauses to shut a drawer, and then takes a step towards Peter. Then stops and leans down to rest his hands on his thighs, so that his and Peter’s heads are just about level; the position feels faintly wrong, but when Peter dips his head, Stiles just stoops more. “Don’t get me wrong. I like you, Peter. I wasn’t flirting just for the hell of it. But I’m a big boy, I can take a little rejection.”

He holds Peter’s gaze for a good, solid minute. Then, smiling again, Stiles steps backward. He pivots on his heel, straightening up as he goes, and then gets almost to the bathroom door before pausing.

“Oh, so…the shower down the hall is free,” he says. “And I was going to…well, share with Chris, and we’ll put up the soundproofing wards but we’re still working on the scent-masking, so…”

“Ah. Yes. Thank you, I appreciate the warning,” Peter says, and he gets up and he goes down the hall to the other bathroom.

He takes a shower. When he’s done, somebody’s grabbed him fresh clothes out of the sets from the duffel bag, and also left him his shaving kit. So Peter shaves, combs his hair. Generally tidies himself up. And then he looks in the mirror at himself for a few minutes.

It’s a relief, he thinks, that it went so well. Really, not a problem at all. He’s relieved. Now he can have a little space, and sort out what he really thinks from what his new, maddeningly intense instincts think. It’s a good thing, really, he thinks, and then he drops his head and he groans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nod to [Silvertemper](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/47835085) for the Scott’s dog shenanigans idea.
> 
> Torrone is the awesome Italian version of nougat. My headcanon Peter's sweet tooth strikes again.
> 
> The wang competition is real, and is run by [Penny Arcade](https://www.penny-arcade.com/).


	7. Chapter 7

Dinner is relatively peaceful. Erica only leers at Peter once, and Derek twice, and Jackson spends the whole time pointedly talking to everyone except Derek, who doesn’t even notice as far as Peter can tell. And as for the people trying to kill them:

“So we posted to as many messageboards that we could get access to, and last I checked, word’s spreading that the Alpha pack can’t back up their bounty with cold hard cash. But I don’t know that that’s going to reach people already in the field,” Lydia says, flicking kale chip dust off her fingers. “Didn’t you say the survivalists only go on the grid to get targets, and then don’t check till they’re done?”

“Yeah, but they still have to buy supplies,” Chris says. “Did you get to the contacts on my firearms and camping dealers list yet? If you didn’t, I can handle it after dinner.”

“I got hold of the twins and I think they’re wavering,” Scott says earnestly, passing around a basket of rolls. “Deucalion’s still pissed off about Ennis, and I think he’s taking it out on the rest of them. I really do think we can talk them into at least sitting it out.”

“Well, great, Scotty, but that still leaves Kali the druid-mangler and Deuc himself,” Stiles says, putting his phone away. “And if you say we should talk to either of them, I’m gonna check you for possession again. Also, make you read the whole autopsy file on the Shasta pack. We got the unredacted copy on the pregnant one.”

Everything quiets. Even Derek looks up, eyes going to Scott and then to Peter, who wills his nephew to just shut his mouth and keep down. 

Chris, interestingly enough, is looking at Scott like an opponent, sizing him up coolly, while his daughter shoots Stiles a hard look—which Stiles ignores—and then subtly brushes her hand over Scott’s as she grabs a roll.

“That was unnecessary, Stiles,” Lydia says in a crisp, non-nonsense tone. She doesn’t look at either alpha, but instead busies herself with the avocado dip, and it does not seem to be a distraction or a screen. She just seems to very much want dip right then. “Who shit in your shoe? I thought you said nothing came up?”

Stiles looks at her through narrowed eyes and Peter feels his thighs flex as he shifts slightly towards the other man. But then Stiles sighs and slouches back in his seat. He flips a hand at Scott, who smiles forgivingly even before Stiles speaks. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s not you, and I wasn’t lying, Lyds. I just got the—so Alan just texted.”

“Oh, is his sister okay?” Scott immediately says. “I thought he was sending her out of town.”

“He was, she did, it’s not her. I don’t know what it is, he just wants to come over tonight,” Stiles says. He looks more sharply at Scott. “What, it’s not your thing?”

Scott sighs. “Just because I still talk to him doesn’t mean that I know everything he does. And I told you I’d stop trying to get you two to talk.”

“Well, maybe you should know,” Lydia mutters. “Fat lot of good he is otherwise.”

“Lyds,” Stiles says. He and she match stares for a few seconds, and then she sniffs and scoops up more dip. He grins at her, then rolls his head back to Scott. “Does he know about Derek and Peter?”

Scott straightens up a little. “If he does, it wasn’t any of us,” he says firmly, and then he pulls out his phone. “Give me a second, I’ll cancel that evening class I was doing. Did you tell him to come here?”

“I didn’t _tell_ him jack shit, he just told me he was gonna come and it was urgent,” Stiles says.

“You should tell him to meet you at the church instead,” Chris says, shaking his head. “And if he shows up here, then he doesn’t get to talk.”

“And what, we’ll be stuck watching him sit at the curb all night? Fuck that, I have alphas to lure to their deaths,” Stiles says. Although he reaches over and he pats Chris’ shoulder as he pushes back from the table. He snags a roll as he goes, then heads towards the basement door. “But yeah, we should probably load up. Sorry, guys, I think dessert’s going to have to wait.”

He disappears down the steps. Chris glances at his plate, then gets up. A tiny movement from Allison catches his eye and he stops, lips pressed together. He looks at her and then nods towards Derek; Allison’s eyes widen and she looks mortified, then desperately grateful. Chris grimaces and turns away, heading for the garage.

“So,” Derek says, as everybody else starts shoveling a last mouthful into their mouth. “What the hell was that about?”

* * *

“Alan Deaton’s a druid,” Allison says, chivvying Derek and Peter into the backyard. “They’re sort of a cross between magic workers and life coaches. Anyway, most packs have a relationship with one, and Deaton used to work with Stiles’ mom, up till she got, well, killed by my grandfather.”

As soon as they’re on the back patio, she shuts and locks the door, and then touches a series of points along the door frame. Different parts of the frame glow different colors, then go back to normal. Once the whole house seems to glow, very faintly. The entire process…doesn’t have a smell or a sound that Peter can detect, but he experiences an odd, not entirely pleasant sensation during it, a little bit like having a static-prone cloth rubbed over his arms and the back of his neck.

“Stiles’ dad was human, actually, although I think he might have had something supernatural in his family tree,” Allison goes on, slinging a duffel bag off her shoulder. “He blamed Deaton for Stiles’ mom, a little bit. I mean, I don’t really know a lot of details, Stiles hates talking about it, but Scott said that—oh, also, Stiles’ dad used to be the sheriff. You know that, right?”

Derek pauses, then looks at Peter.

“He quit before Derek started getting into trouble,” Peter says. He does remember Sheriff Stilinski, very vaguely, because even fresh out of law school he saw the sense in keeping up with local politics. But he can’t remember ever crossing paths with the man, except for the usual small-town scenarios of going to the same supermarket and so forth. “I think I heard he went over to private investigation?”

“Forensic consultant. Well, um, you do kind of have to see a lot of bodies anyway if you’re a werewolf, or hang out with them, and I think he was helping his wife keep the cops out of it,” Allison says. She squats down and starts to pull things out of the bag: crossbow, bolts that she hastily stuffs out of Derek’s view, various unspecified electronic devices. “But what Scott said was, when my grandfather started getting nasty, Stiles’ dad wanted to bring them in. Get hunters arrested for trespassing and firearms without a permit, that stuff, and get them out of town that way. But Deaton argued, said they’d risk letting too many people find out about werewolves.”

Part of Peter wants to know exactly what those devices are. Part of Peter wants to skip straight to why Allison seems to be laying out a small armory for a simple meeting, and never mind what the damned things do. And part of Peter very, very much doesn’t like standing out on an open yard, with night falling and dark, secretive masses of trees at the other end.

“I can understand the concern for secrecy, but I don’t really see how getting a hunter arrested for a perfectly valid legal violation would lead to that,” he says, trying to ignore the prickling hairs on the back of his neck. It’s not an especially cool night—he thinks his body temperature might be a little higher now anyway—but he shivers and then steps back towards the house, so Allison and Derek are between him and the rest of the yard. “Did he think the hunters were going to talk the police into believing in werewolves? Because I find that unlikely.”

“Yeah, I know, and—I don’t know all the details, like I said.” Allison checks the power on a few of the devices, then swaps in fresh batteries. “Anyway, Stiles’ mom sided with Deaton. There was this hunter who was working for my grandfather, and he got arrested for attacking her behind a coffee-shop, but she dropped the charges and the police had to release him. And then he ended up being the one who cornered her and shot her later.”

Whatever’s in the air, it doesn’t seem to be affecting Derek. He’s dropped down right beside Allison, and is looking with interest at the bullet clips. One or two make him sneeze and recoil, but he just wipes off his nose and then pokes at the next one. “I think I can see why Stiles’ dad flipped,” he says.

“Like, _really_ flipped. He almost got Deaton arrested by the FBI, I heard,” Allison says. “Anyway, Deaton wasn’t the family druid anymore. Stiles’ dad banned him from the pack—I think that’s why Stiles ended up so good with magic, he picked up the slack afterward—and now nobody talks to him but Scott. And that’s just because Scott’s really nice and he says Deaton feels really, really guilty and wants to make it up to Stiles. And also Deaton is a vet and he helped Scott figure out how to work with dogs without them freaking out on him. So here, here, these are tasers.”

Peter gets something that’s recognizably a stungun. Derek gets a small, black cylinder, and then gets his wrist grabbed before he can do anything with it. Allison looks him in the eye as he frowns, then reaches over with her other hand. She takes his index finger and moves it over different buttons on the cylinder.

“On/off, setting, retract,” she says.

Derek frowns more. “Retract?”

Allison does something and the cylinder suddenly expands into a long rod, crackling so much electricity that the smell of ozone makes Peter sneeze. “Are we Sith now?” he mutters.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I was okay with Han shooting first,” Allison says. She smiles up at him, then presses another button so the rod turns off and collapses. Then she turns a serious face on Derek, who is transparently gleeful about his weapon. “Just be _careful_ , all right? Keep your finger on the off button when you’re using it, if it touches you, it’ll knock you out too. And settings three through five throw off enough sparks to set stuff on fire.”

“Yeah, okay,” Derek says half-absently, fingering said settings buttons.

“I’m very sorry to interrupt, but—are we expecting an actual fight?” Peter says, fidgeting with his stungun. “Are we—are _we_ supposed to do something?”

Allison looks back up, then grabs up the crossbow and starts…snapping out and rotating parts. Peter had thought that it looked assembled, but apparently not. And not that he’s any kind of weaponry expert anyway.

“Oh, uh, no, it shouldn’t really be a big deal, except for ruining dessert,” Allison says, and even Derek isn’t buying that one. She pauses mid-assembly, then takes a deep breath and tries again, with less terrible nonchalance and more earnestness. “No, really. Deaton puts Stiles in a bad mood, but it’s probably not—they’re probably just going to argue. It’s just, if he doesn’t know about you guys, we don’t want him to. His sister sort of worked for the Alpha pack—”

Derek stops playing with the electric saber thing and jerks to his feet. “What? And you guys are just letting him come over—”

“We’re not _letting_ him, he just is coming,” Allison says sharply. Her voice roughens and Derek drops back, blinking hard. Allison looks a little chagrined, but then shakes her head and goes back to her crossbow. “Look. He didn’t work for them, and he hates them as much as we do, and the thing with his sister—well, trust me, she regretted it, and she’s out of town now and doesn’t help them anymore. But we just want to be careful. We don’t think the Alphas know we’ve got another two betas yet and we don’t want them to find out, even by accident.”

“Well, then why are we gearing up?” Derek says. He still sounds dubious, but he’s making an effort to not crowd up into Allison’s space.

Allison tilts her head, looking at him, and then smiles tentatively. “Because even if you think they’re friendly, it never hurts to have military-grade weapons?”

Derek considers this. “True.”

“So I’ll be up on the roof, so I can cover both sides,” Allison says, while stashing bolts and bullet clips about her person. “You might not be able to see me all of the time, but I can see you. And if something _does_ happen, yell for help, okay? It’s not being weak, it’s being pack. You don’t have to fight but it’s going to be a lot better for you if you don’t run off and make us chase you.”

“Yeah, fine,” Derek says. He sits down on a patio chair, tossing the saber from hand to hand, and watches as Allison does a standing jump to mid-roof, without even appearing to need an extra breath. His head tilts up and when she waves at him, he raises his hand.

Allison beams down. She waves again, then hops up to the spine of the roof and crouches down, peering at the front yard.

“Huh.” Derek looks up at her for a second longer, then gives himself a shake. He looks bemusedly at the saber handle. Plays with the setting and the retract buttons, and then he puts it to the side of him and looks over at Peter. “So what the hell is wrong now?”

Peter starts and nearly drops the stungun. “Wrong?”

Derek stares at him for a second. Then stretches out his leg, hooks his foot around the other patio chair, and drags it towards Peter. “If you’re gonna drop that thing, don’t drop it on you,” he says. “You heard her, you’ll set yourself on fire, and it’ll be your fault so you can’t blame anybody for losing another suit.”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” Peter says, and sits down. The taser touches his knee and he jerks back before remembering he’s the one holding onto it. Then he jerks again. He checks twice that the power is off and then puts it on the chair. “Well, I’m glad to see that you at least are adjusting well. Then again, this isn’t too much from a fistfight, is it? Just considerably more high-powered. And claws and fangs. And an entire foreign social structure.”

After another moment’s staring, Derek reaches into his pocket. He rummages around and then pulls out his phone.

“ _No_ , Derek, I do _not_ need the manual,” Peter snaps.

“Well, then what’s your problem?” Derek snaps back. “Because you’ve got one. You didn’t say anything all through dinner, and I don’t think it’s because you’re trying to psych anybody out. What, I thought you were going to talk to Stiles?”

“I did.” Peter rubs at the side of his face.

His nephew eyes him a little like one would eye an injured but potentially dangerous animal, like a bear or a snake, and Peter wishes he could feel flattered, but in all honesty, Peter thinks Derek’s grossly overestimating him for once.

“So?” Derek finally sighs. “Did it go bad or something? Because you seemed okay with him at dinner. You just didn’t say anything.”

“No. No, it went…well. Well. It went well. He isn’t going to insist that we have sex,” Peter says. He stares at the patio tiles. 

One of them stares back at him. Peter blinks hard, and…the tile still has eyes, but they’re stylized, static eyes. And then they disappear, and the tile just has geometric patterns in its glaze. Although come to think of it, they do have a decided resemblance to Celtic imagery, and Allison had thrown around the word ‘druid,’ and why on earth would Celtic culture be the one to pop up? Logically, if there is any remote sense of logic to this, one would expect Scandinavian or Slavic, considering they have far stronger associations with lycanthropy.

It’s entirely possible that Peter’s gone insane, and it has nothing to do with out of place mythology or magical tiles.

“So that’s good,” Derek says, and then tilts his head. “Or not. Or…can you just say something? You’re starting to scare me.”

“I’m starting to scare you.” Peter looks at the other man. “ _I’m_ starting to scare you.”

Derek starts to answer that, sarcastically, and then he stops himself. He stops himself and he looks up, as if he’s actually attempting to remember how patience works, and then he sighs. “Peter. Just in case this actually does go to hell, and we end up fighting psychos, can you just tell me whether or not you’re going to be okay?”

“I have a military stungun because I might have to kill somebody!” Peter hisses.

“Well, do you want me to do it for you?” Derek says. He does, in fact, seem to be serious. Then he rolls his eyes and sighs again. “Yeah, so. This might be my issues or shock or something like that, but I think I’m okay with doing that. I mean, if they’re going at me, I’m not going to cry about what might happen to them. And I’m kind of surprised you aren’t.”

“What, because I happily uphold our legal system’s insistence on giving even blatant, unapologetic murderers due process and a chance at reasonable doubt?” Peter says. He runs his hand over his face again, then puts his elbows up on his knees and rubs at his temples. “And don’t start on my being a hypocrite for not wanting to get my hands dirty, and anyway, it isn’t even that. _Amazingly_. Amazingly, the idea of committing homicide actually is taking a backseat right now.”

Derek’s newfound patience is very thin, but he manages to keep the subvocal growls to a minimum as he sighs a third time. “Then what the hell is it? Is it Stiles? Did he do something else?”

“He—” Peter starts. Then he pushes at his face with both hands. “Yes. Him. He’s sleeping with Chris, did you know that?”

“Yeah,” Derek says. He blinks. “Allison mentioned, and also, they _just_ fucked and whatever soap they’re using doesn’t even start to cover it up. Is your nose broken?”

Peter glares at him.

Derek puts his hand out, pauses, and then pulls it back and pinches at the bridge of his nose. He angrily debates something with himself, then squeezes his eyes shut and moves his pinching fingers up to dig into his forehead. “So look, you get that the whole stuff about polyamory, it’s not like everybody has to sleep with each other. Like Scott and Allison, I think they’re still getting over their break-up and I don’t see them making out any time soon.”

“But they would happily do that with you. Separately. Perhaps on a schedule,” Peter says.

“See, this is why I hate talking to you, because you’re such a dick about—fuck. Allison, if you heard that, I’m sorry Peter is a jackass.” Derek tilts his head back, still pinching his brow. “Look, the point is, you don’t have to screw Chris if you want to screw Stiles.”

“The point is, I’m not going to screw Stiles,” Peter says.

Derek pulls his head down, and looks at Peter, and then lets his head continue to go down so that he can put it in his hands. “Peter, I had to spend three weeks listening to you go on about the guy. About his weird case, and his habit of eavesdropping on your coworkers and then dishing you dirt on them, and about his stupid fucking ass in his stupid fucking khakis. And now he’s not just that, he’s an alpha werewolf who kicks ass and who doesn’t get caught and if you say you, _you_ of all people, you _don’t_ want that, then you are so fucking insane I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s just the alpha siren effect!” Peter says.

“The what?” Derek says. He looks up, then thumbs the passcode to his phone and starts swiping. “I don’t think I saw that…did you just make that up? Because there’s already enough jargon without—whatever. Peter. I know you, okay? I knew you before you were a werewolf. And whatever hissy fit you’re having right now, you want to jump that guy so bad I’m really thinking about screwing Scott and Allison just so I can smell something else, and that’s all you, believe me.”

Peter opens his mouth to…to…well.

He could lie.

Except they’re werewolves, and not very good ones yet, and so lies are easy to detect, and damn it. Just…damn it.

“I told him I didn’t want to,” is what Peter says.

Derek looks up, then rolls his eyes. “Okay, who the _hell_ are you?” he says. “Because I can’t believe I’m better at this than—”

Something flashes at the end of the yard. They both look over, starting, and it…it looks like Christmas lights. A little. There are long, tangled strings in soft blue and white, and they keep flashing on and off in unpredictable ways. The strings seem to stretch across the yard and Peter’s about to comment about overachievers when he remembers that it’s summer. And also, those strings seem to be hanging a few yards in from the treeline, which means they’re suspended in thin air.

“Get back inside!” Allison shouts from the roof. Her voice is half-drowned by a series of sharp twangs, and then a loud thump. 

The roof tiles slap and a roar like no animal Peter has ever heard fills the air. Peter whips his head around to look up, sees multiple people standing on the roof, and then twists back just in time to see the glowing strings develop a giant hole, through which something dark and extremely fast bursts. It leaps and wheels across the yard, dodging crossbow bolts and then a werewolf leaping down from the roof.

Boyd, with Erica closely following, Peter thinks. They appear to be tag-teaming the thing—which Peter guesses is another werewolf, shaped a lot more along the lines of how Stiles had appeared in his office—in order to crowd it into a corner of the yard where Allison can better reach with her crossbow.

But just as they back it in, the thing rushes them and the two of them frantically scramble out of the way, in opposite directions. Erica flips over onto her feet and Peter sees the glint of a gun in her hand, but then she swears and jerks that down, just as the strange alpha whirls so any bullet would fly straight into the neighboring house.

“Peter!” somebody shouts in his ear, making him double over and clutch at it. 

Then they grab his arm and yank him backwards. His legs slam into something and he’s knocked off his feet, then claws at whoever’s got him. Peter twists free, then kicks out of the chair he’s just half-destroyed, and stumbles back against the other chair. He glimpses Derek’s frustrated, urgent face to the side—so that’s who grabbed him—and then just—feels—he has to wrench his head around. Has to.

That strange werewolf’s eluded Boyd and—and Chris?—and is now barreling straight for Peter, eyes blazing red, mouth open, fangs big and white and sharp. The tongue’s hanging out between the lower ones just like a dog, Peter absently observes.

In the moment before his instincts override his complete loss of nerves, and he shouts and jumps back from it. He completely clears the rest of the patio, but that’s away from the door, and then somebody yells at him and he realizes that the stungun is back where he’d just been, and the werewolf after him has _changed direction midair_ like some furred heat-targeting missile.

Peter backs up. Slams himself into something hard and immovable. The impact jars something in him and he’s dropping into a crouch, world shifting, snarling and baring his own fangs. He knows he’s doing it only in the vaguest sense; he isn’t planning anything, isn’t doing anything except reacting to imminent death.

He feels the werewolf’s breath on his face, and then—it’s slapped away. Peter shudders from a collision that never happened, then stares as the werewolf is rammed into the ground, another werewolf—another _alpha_ on top of it and tearing viciously at its belly. The two wrestle and then break apart, and then, before the first one can get up, Stiles shifts human, bounces onto his feet and grabs a gun out of seemingly thin air.

No, Chris tossed it to him, and as Chris runs up, Stiles cocks back the safety and fires two shots into the strange alpha, one into a knee and the other into its gut. The alpha’s half-transformed and it jerks wildly at each bullet, very long, brunette hair whipping over the ground. Then the woman shifts the rest of the way, face twisted in pain, fangs still out as she gnaws at the grass.

She pants as Stiles comes up to her, gun still in hand. “You came calling, Stilinski,” she says, spitting up blood and a black, tarry substance whose smell makes Peter nauseous. “This is what you get.”

“Yep, that’s about right,” Stiles says. And, just as the woman’s eyes widen in surprise, he moves the gun and shoots her in the face.

“Did she actually think you were gonna do it the old way and slash out her throat?” Erica says, walking up on Stiles’ other side. “Like you need her trauma rattling around your head.”

Stiles shrugs. He keeps the gun trained on…on the dead woman, until Chris pulls out a plastic bag and a very large knife, and kneels down beside the corpse. Then, so Peter thankfully does not need to see what Chris might do with those two things, Stiles turns around and looks at Peter. “Hey, you okay?”

Peter blinks. He pushes himself up—he’s sitting on the ground, he realizes. He pushes himself up against the house, and touches his face. There’s blood on it. He didn’t think he was _that_ close, but there it is, on his fingertips.

Frowning, Stiles holsters the gun and steps over the dead woman’s legs. “Peter? Hey, Peter.”

He bends over so Peter and he are eye to eye. Then his head bobs a little lower as he adjusts his stance, and over it the air ripples oddly. It has a _shape_ , the air. It’s a little like that villain from the second Terminator movie—

Peter still isn’t thinking. He grabs at Stiles, yanking his alpha forward onto him as the man solidifies, and one hand scrabbles at Stiles’ shoulder while the other one gets caught on something under Stiles’ arm. He jerks that hand free and it comes away with something in it, and there’s a bang and then a pained grunt and Stiles falls on Peter’s head.

A couple seconds later, when things sort out, there’s a wounded alpha werewolf pinned down next to the dead, now headless one, by crossbow bolts and by Chris and Boyd. And Stiles is fine. Stiles is _thrilled_ , in fact, having shifted to curl his arm companionably around Peter’s head as he stares at the pinned werewolf.

“Wow, you know, I thought we were gonna have a problem when Alan said you’d finally found another mage to break our wards, but I guess not,” Stiles says, somehow managing to talk while purring, a deep, guttural, almost palpable rumble of complete satisfaction. He finally pries his gun out of Peter’s stiff, numb fingers, glances it over, and then uses it to shoot the werewolf in the head, just as the man tries to say something. “Whatever, Deuc. I’m pretty sure we can figure out anything you left us.”

Allison jumps down from the roof, followed in short order by Scott. Stiles looks over, then again as Scott steps forward. His amusement dims a little, and when all Scott does is just sigh and look hugely disappointed in the dead alphas, Stiles visibly relaxes, heartbeat slowing.

“You gave him a chance, bro,” Stiles calls over. “A lot of them, actually.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know,” Scott says sadly. He presses his lips together, then runs his hand back through his hair. Then his head moves a little to the side as Allison hesitantly comes to stand by him, their shoulders not quite touching.

“The new Shasta pack’s going to be relieved,” she says quietly to him. “They’re going to be really glad when you call them.”

Scott glances at her, then nods, looking slightly less mournful. Then he frowns, twisting further over. “Hey. Hey, Derek, you all right? I’m sorry I—we really weren’t going to make you fight.”

Derek edges up behind both of them. He looks considerably less calm about violent death now that he’s looking it in the face, but he’s alert, his eyes are flicking purposefully around and across the bodies, one hand loose at his side, the other still curled around the extended saber with finger on the power button. “So wolfsbane bullets, right?” he mutters. “And cutting off the head, is this like a trophy thing?”

“What? No, it’s just to keep off necromancers,” Scott says, making a face. 

“Oh, good, because that’d be pretty extreme even for…” Derek takes a deep breath, then looks quizzically at Scott “…necromancers?”

“Well, I guess some people are just born for this,” Stiles says under his breath, watching them. He absently pats Peter’s shoulder, then blinks hard and looks down. Then cranes his head around, looking closer. “Peter? Hey…so it’s okay, it’s over. So…how about we go…inside, and you…not look at them anymore, and…”

“Stiles, I shot one,” Peter says.

“Yeah. Yeah, and it’s okay if it’s not your bag, not every werewolf has to be into homicide,” Stiles says. He puts his gun away, then twists around so that he’s squatting in front of Peter. “You saved my life too, which is _awesome_ , by the way. Thanks.”

“I shot one,” Peter says again. He pauses, and really looks at the man in front of him. Covered in blood and dirt, with a reddish-brown smear right under one eye that looks and smells—to a werewolf—quite a bit like dried strawberry jam. Alive and whole, and utterly in control of everything, even if he looks a little puzzled with Peter right now. “I shot one, and I think I’m fine with that, actually.”

Stiles pauses. “Well, okay, cool.”

“Also, you killed them, and I think I’m fine with that, too,” Peter says. He breathes in, and all he smells is Stiles.

“Good, because I’m not really into sparing people so they can ki— _mmm_ ,” Stiles goes, because Peter grabs his head and yanks him down and kisses him.

“Whoo, get it, alpha!” Erica whoops in the background.

Peter is directing the kiss for less than a second. Just enough time to peel his back off the wall, and then he’s promptly flattened back into that as Stiles takes his kiss and absolutely devours it. No contest, not that he even wants to.

Stiles’ fingers drag into his hair, then pull his head back so that he’s tipping up into Stiles’ mouth. He gasps and Stiles licks into his mouth, seems to steal all the air with that, and when Peter moans he’s pinned against the wall, writhing and twisting, feeling the outline of Stiles’ body pressed into his as if it’s been traced out in hot coals.

And then, for some reason, he’s free. And Stiles is standing over him, panting, eyes glittering but mildly regretful. “Damn,” Stiles says. He strokes Peter’s cheek and Peter trembles, and Stiles visibly pulls himself back. “Um. Okay. So, in, shower, bed, and in the morning, if you’re still wanting to do this, we’ll talk.”

“What?” Peter says. He paws absently at the ground on either side of him, then reaches up and pushes at his hair. His hand’s shaking. He pulls it away in disgust, and then yelps in dismay and grabs at Stiles as the other man starts to step back. “Wait, what, I—what—”

“Oh, for…” Stiles moves back, but only to wrap his arm around Peter’s neck. He intercepts Peter’s hands and pushes them up to the center of Peter’s chest, in a loose but immovable hold. “Okay. Okay, look, I really, really want to, but we kind of just shared a kill and that’s a—that’s a—you’re a little drunk right now, let’s say. So you need to sleep on it.”

“What, no, I mean—I didn’t—I _was_ thinking about it, and I didn’t see it, I mean I didn’t want to see it, but—what, no, I want to,” Peter half-moans, half-babbles as Stiles steers him into the house. He stumbles and starts to pull himself up, and then thinks—sort of—the better of it and just lets himself drag into the other man. “I lied, Stiles, I was lying before, and I’m a fool and now I—”

Stiles swears under his breath. “Nobody can’t say I didn’t fucking _sacrifice_ ,” he mutters. And then shoves Peter up against the wall, right as Peter’s just managed to swivel around and slide up along Stiles’ thigh.

Peter moans. Stiles stares at him, eyes hot, mouth part-open so fang tips show and for once that isn’t intimidating at all. It’s _hungry_ , viciously hungry, and that is exactly how Peter feels.

He leans forward, and Stiles snarls, and Peter drops back and slumps and his head tilts and he can feel the softness of his own throat, feel it like he’s touching it with the back of his hand, and he knows that’s what Stiles is looking for. Knows it like he knows he’s alive, knows it in his bones and his blood and not his mind, and he whines, rocks his head against the wall.

Stiles snarls a second time. Softer, lower, deeper. His breath passes over Peter’s throat, almost stinging, it’s so hot, and then he pushes in and the feel of his nose and mouth rubbing over Peter’s skin makes Peter shiver.

“No,” Stiles says, over Peter’s whimpering. 

He tilts his head and Peter feverishly nuzzles over and in, luxuriating in the scent and heat collecting in the crook of Stiles’ neck. Stiles laughs, laughs and then his teeth close on Peter’s skin, but even through the haze, Peter can tell it’s not encouragement. It’s not—it’s not rejection, either; something about the nip settles deep into Peter, so deep he doesn’t think it’ll ever come out. But it’s not encouragement. Damn him, it’s not, and Peter can’t bring himself to fight against that.

“No, seriously, Peter, no,” Stiles goes on. He trails his mouth up and down the side of Peter’s neck, nipping as he goes, comforting but also distancing. His hands press firmly around Peter’s wrists, further shaking off the daze. “Go to bed. Okay? Go to bed.”

“I hate you,” Peter finally mumbles.

Stiles pauses, then snickers. And then, just as Peter’s convinced himself to try and yank free, Stiles abruptly pushes back in. Kisses Peter within an inch of his life, and then leaves him to cling to the wall.

“Yeah, no, you don’t,” Stiles says. “Morning, okay?”

He walks off. Peter blinks, breathes, kneads his hands against the wall. Starts to slide down to sit, and then catches himself and rakes roughly back through his hair. Ignores the pricks as he pulls out a few strands.

“Hey.” Derek’s appeared at some point. He looks uncharacteristically awkward. “So. We’re supposed to shower first. And I think Chris is going to come drag you if you don’t get moving.”

Peter looks at him, then jerks off the wall. “I hate you,” he says. “And Chris, and everything. Everything.”

“Oh, thank God,” Derek mutters, following him. “You were getting really weird for a while there, Peter. Don’t make me deal with that, it’s bad enough when you’re yourself.”

Peter locks him out of the master bath. And takes a bath. Not a shower, a bath. With bubble bath he’s smelled on Lydia, because. He hates _everything_.

Well. All right. Lydia has excellent taste in bubble bath, he’ll give her that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon (first season, anyway) is kind of unclear about this, but either alpha!Peter carried around a lot of identical leather coats and red dress shirts, or he was a super-fast dresser/undresser and always went back to get his clothes, or when alphas shift to full alpha form, their clothes change with them; the season finale transformation sort of shows leather falling off, but it's weirdly rippling and arguably something else could be happening to the strips. And that doesn't solve the other logistical issues. Whatever. For purposes of this 'verse, I'm going with, their clothes shift with them.
> 
> I just feel like so many fights in TW would have been over in two seconds if you'd just trained the person with the _supernatural physical reflexes_ to use a gun. Stiles' father, being a former cop, was never, ever going to miss that one.


	8. Chapter 8

In the morning, Peter wakes up next to a pile of bodies that does not include Stiles. He eases away from the tangle that’s protruding Derek’s left arm and a piece of ankle, and goes through his morning ablutions. Gets dressed. Goes downstairs with his laptop and phone, and spends a deeply-focused hour and a half tidying up things at work.

In the meantime, breakfast ebbs and flows around him, and, with his new focus, he keeps half an ear on the conversation. Apparently Stiles is out dealing with this mage the Alpha pack hired, along with this Deaton. Chris is not happy he didn’t get to come, and spends most of the time arguing in low tones with Lydia and Scott, and completely ignoring his daughter’s migration from her own chair to Derek’s chair to being a hair away from sitting on Derek’s lap, under the guise of helping Derek cut up his waffles, since using one’s claws is just rude.

“Fine,” Chris finally snaps as the kitchen empties. “Have it your way.”

“Was that even a question?” Lydia says.

Scott watches as the two of them stalk off in opposite directions, one hand pulling at his hair. Then he sighs. “You think I should—”

“No,” say Allison and Isaac and Jackson, as they finish stacking dishes in the dishwasher.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” Scott says. He takes his hand out of his hair and starts to check his phone, then looks up as Derek, flipping a wet towel to the counter, also starts to leave. “Oh, hey, wait. So we think it might be okay to sneak you into your place, if you want. But we gotta go now, we’ve got like a twenty-minute window while Stiles’ dad’s old deputy gets donuts.”

Derek immediately backtracks. “No, that sounds great. Let’s go.”

So that leaves Peter and his laptop, and his incredibly inane workload. He presses his knuckles into the side of his face as he stares at his inbox, doing some wistful calculations about the financial feasibility of buying out his capital contribution. He’d still like to be a lawyer, he does genuinely enjoy his work, but it’s just difficult to take easement disputes seriously right now. Perhaps because he doesn’t really see the point in a legal fiction allowing one to get from point A to point B over land one doesn’t own, when last night he watched an alpha werewolf use an actual invisibility cloak.

“So, you’re after Stiles now?” Chris says, and Peter yelps and nearly smashes his laptop.

This lack of physical control has got to go, Peter thinks, pulling his claws away from yet another shattered plate. He wills his fingernails back, and then takes out his phone and starts scrolling through that damn app. “If this is the prelude to some sort of jealous rage, Chris, please just skip to the part where you leave a dead animal on my doorstep.”

“One, your doorstep’s across town. Two, you might want to look up traditional werewolf courtship while you’re in there,” Chris says dryly. He glances over the kitchen, then makes a face as he spots fresh scratch marks on the microwave handle. He goes over to it and mutters what sounds like Latin, if Peter has any memory of his few college classes in that, and then wiggles his fingertip over the handle, which seems to—well, _does_ magically repair itself. “I’m not going to be jealous, Peter. I knew going in that Stiles wasn’t sticking to one person.”

Peter…gets a little sidetracked on the courtship issue. The very detailed flow chart is rather impressive, what with how it morphs as one selects different possible advances and responses. Then he shakes himself and goes back to looking up mental exercises. “Well, that’s very enlightened of you. I can’t imagine it’s easy to keep up with a crowd of nubile young things.”

“I don’t have to keep up with a crowd, I just have to get off before they do so I don’t end up in the wet spot,” Chris says. He picks up the towel Derek dropped and gives the island a swipe, and then looks blandly up at Peter. “Not that I know anything about your preferences, or that you should take this as an invite to fill me in, but if you’re expecting a quick, clean fuck, you might want to revise your ideas.”

“Did you talk like this before?” Peter says after a second. “I could’ve sworn you implied my sister was a bad mother because Derek called your wife a stone cold bitch.”

Chris stiffens. His eyes glow a little, and—and Peter still feels a reflex to tip up his chin and whine, but it’s decidedly weaker. Apparently, killing with your alpha restores your spine.

“Touché,” Chris says. He dabs at the counter, frowning at Peter, and then shrugs and puts down the towel. “Anyway, Peter, I just wanted to say that I wasn’t planning on jumping in, too. So use the shower, stop wrecking the master bed, and also, I get that sometimes Stiles just happens, but if you could keep from having me walk in on it, I’ll do the same.”

What it doesn’t do, however, is restore Peter’s ability to take an insult without sputtering like a blocked faucet. “I—didn’t even—I never thought you would!” he snaps. “Why would you even—I _am_ not interested, thank you, and—and family history doesn’t dictate the present, and—why would you even think—”

“Didn’t we talk about this?” Stiles says, walking in. When Peter flinches, he pauses and he takes out whatever charm’s been magically hiding him. Then he goes over and pulls another one out of Chris’ back pocket.

He doesn’t make any attempt to hide copping a feel. Chris doesn’t make any attempt to hide rolling his ass back into it. “I’m being nice,” he says to Stiles. He twists slightly as Stiles walks around him, tracking the other man, and then pushes back from the counter to flick the wet towel into the sink. “He’s the one who brought up Kate.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Stiles says affectionately. He bends over and pulls open one of the lower cabinets, and at the same time his other arm lifts so that his hand encircles the back of Chris’ neck. He moves his grip up and down—Peter’s shoulders move at the same time, annoyingly—and then lets go with a last pat to Chris’ jaw. “So sorry we left you out of the magical fun times, but Alan knows _this_ guy too, and he talked me into just scaring him.”

“It’s funny how he seems to know all the magic workers who are too stupid to not check out whether they’re selling to the winning side first,” Chris mutters. He’d tilted his head into Stiles’ hand, eyes closing slightly, and is still relaxed, even without Stiles’ hand on him.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, which is why _I_ went to terrify the guy,” Stiles says, coming back up with a plate. He pulls out something squishy and dark red and bagged in plastic, and then proceeds to shake that out onto the plate, rewrap everything in saran wrap, and put it in the fridge. “So, Peter, how are we feeling this morning?”

Stiles looks up, and Peter realizes he’s been glaring at Chris the whole time. He jerks his head away, looks fully at Stiles, and then makes himself take a deep breath.

“Happy to know the people potentially trying to kill me are dead,” Peter says, as smoothly as he can.

“Um, well, some of them. Word should spread quick, but I think you and Derek should keep staying here till we’re sure all the hunters are out of town,” Stiles says. He seems more apologetic than worried. “You can probably start going out again, but we’ll send somebody around with you. We gotta make sure you’re okay through the full moon, anyway.”

Peter blinks. Then glances down at his phone before he can help himself.

“It’s okay, I know it’s a lot. But…you should probably step up learning that kind of thing,” Stiles says. He pauses until Peter looks back up at him, and then he still just looks at Peter. He doesn’t seem nervous or exasperated or even impatient, but he’s clearly waiting. “So. Elephant in the room. Still want to fuck?”

“Well, after further consideration, no,” Peter says. He takes another deep breath, and pointedly doesn’t look over at Chris’ disbelieving exclamation. “I’d like to date, actually.”

Stiles blinks hard. “Date?”

“Chris here told me a little of your past history. Specifically, his daughter’s unfortunate break-up with Scott, and the reasons behind it. And while I don’t think I have the same concerns, I do think I could stand to…not rush into things,” Peter says, very carefully, pretending his heartbeat isn’t utterly contradicting him with its hummingbird buzz. “Besides, honestly, we hardly knew each other before. And now we’re going to be dealing with each other regardless of a personal relationship, and…and it just seems…sensible.”

“Sensible,” Stiles repeats in a considering tone. He cocks his head, then grins as if he’s suddenly discovered the punchline. “Oh, sure. We can go slow. No rush, I mean, like you say, we’re going to be around each other anyway, we need to get to know each other.”

Peter lets out the breath he’d been semi-holding. “Thank you,” he says, in all sincerity.

“No problem.” Stiles drops the bloody, empty baggie in the can, then knocks the lid back down with the back of his hand. He uses the same motion to twist his wrist so he can look over his palm, then sniff it.

Apparently it doesn’t pass muster, because then Stiles goes over to the sink. He washes his hands while discussing something about the local police with Chris, and gradually, it sinks in that the conversation is over. And Peter’s gotten what he wants. And it’s really just that easy.

Peter stares at Stiles’ back, then shakes himself. Then again, as he looks back down at his laptop and his endlessly populating inbox, and tries not to think about looking up whether being a werewolf automatically makes you hate well-thought-out, commonsensical, smoothly-executed plans. He has a little bit of a perverse streak, he’s never denied it, but he honestly doesn’t think he’s ever felt so damn _petty_ about himself before.

“Hey, so, one thing?” Stiles says.

Peter looks up, and Stiles swings around the end of the island and right up between Peter’s knees. And kisses him, while he’s still trying to respond. Kisses him, warm hands cupping his jaw, warm tongue in his mouth, and God, but the man still smells like blood and victory.

“You free this afternoon?” Stiles says. “’cause I can do slow but that’s not the same as stalling, and anyway, gotta start showing you around. I’ll grab you after lunch and we’ll be back for dinner, I promise. Okay?”

Peter’s head moves up and down. Whether that actually qualifies as a _nod_ , given that Peter’s mind is currently somewhere between jelly and a steaming puddle—

Stiles kisses him again, rendering that entire debate moot. “Great,” Stiles says. He strokes his thumbs along Peter’s cheeks, then whisks off somewhere.

“You’re a lot stupider than I remember,” Chris says thoughtfully. When Peter looks over, he holds his hands up in clear mock surrender. “Look, I thought Derek had you covered on calling you out, at least based on what we’ve all been hearing. But Jesus, Peter, I don’t think I’ve ever seen somebody fuck himself over so many times so quickly. Between _both_ our families.”

“I’m going upstairs,” Peter says after a moment. He picks up his phone and his laptop. “I have work. Have a nice day, Chris, and do go to hell while you’re at it.”

* * *

Peter risks a call to his legal assistant and favorite paralegal, and after some tough negotiating involving year-end bonuses and a holiday party at an exclusive downtown club—one that Boyd manages, but Peter sees no reason to slack on haggling just because his costs have gone down—they get him out of everything except his usual status meeting with the managing partner. But that’s not till the end of the week, so he has some time to think of something.

Then he sits down and he reads through the werewolf app. He syncs his phone to his laptop and bookmarks all the external links the app has for later references, organizing them into folders in order of priority. He also upgrades his alumni membership so he can get a login to his old college’s online library services, and once he has that, he does some interlibrary loan ordering. He sets up new Google alerts, then peruses the offerings on this Styx Plus site before ordering some reference books and a starter runestone-making kit.

By the time he’s done, it’s just before lunch. Peter goes downstairs and finds Derek suffering through Scott and Isaac’s attempts to explain how to make tamales, and offers to help.

“He should help, he can cook,” Derek says grudgingly, while shoving the bowl of masa flour over. “Also, what do you want?”

“To not eat charcoal,” Peter says, rolling up his sleeves.

Derek rolls his eyes. He’s wearing his own clothing, so the trip to his place must have been successful. “Yeah, and?”

“To contribute in a concrete way to the pack,” Peter says.

“Right,” Derek says, watching Peter knead water into the flour. He takes the knife and onion Scott hands to him, and since that is actually a task that Derek can perform without risk of food poisoning, Peter doesn’t intervene. “So you’re dating Stiles now?”

“That’s great, I know he really likes you,” Scott says helpfully. “He was really frustrated that you guys couldn’t do anything till after his dad’s thing was done because of rules. Which….um, I guess we’re not worried about anymore?”

Behind him, Isaac looks utterly exasperated with his alpha, in a hopelessly fond way. Then, like a sensible young man, he maneuvers Scott into browning the meat at the stove, and sidles up on Derek’s other side so he can peer around Derek at Peter.

“Just so you know, all that traditional courtship stuff in the manual, Stiles isn’t really big on it,” Isaac mutters.

Peter pauses halfway through taking his hands out of the bowl. He _had_ thought a good deal of it didn’t suit an alpha who uses modern firearms and wears Minesweeper t-shirts, but…none of it?

“Are we talking about this date this afternoon?” Lydia says, walking in. She takes a seat at the island with her ever-present laptop, then looks with deeply withering impatience at Peter. “You two are driving Kali’s and Deucalion’s bodies into the preserve to the illegal crematory we have there. Reaction?”

“…do you have the rangers on payroll?” Peter says. Because that honestly is the first question that comes to mind, as she’s attempting to dissect him with her eyes. “How do they miss the smoke otherwise?”

Lydia’s contempt lightens slightly. “Yes, and also, magic. Although if you’re expecting fairies to come dancing out of the underbrush with champagne and strawberries, that’s not how that works.”

“Well, I don’t want to assume at this point, but the likelihood that either of us are admirers of Disney movies seems low,” Peter mutters. He puts the dough aside to rest and then searches around for something to wipe off his hands. “Body disposal. He did mention something about showing me around.”

“You’re not doing that the whole time. Stiles likes his efficiencies, but he does actually have a grasp of common social rituals,” Lydia sniffs. “What are you wearing?”

“Well, of my limited options, I suppose I’ll go with whatever doesn’t have an aerated abdominal region,” Peter says, just as Scott hands him a paper towel.

Lydia pauses mid-type, brow furrowing. Then she takes a hand off the keyboard and touches it to her brow. “I keep forgetting you’re new,” she mutters, with genuine embarrassment. Which goes by the wayside with a toss of her admittedly shining mane, and then she’s resumed wrinkling her nose at the universe. “I meant your scent.”

“Don’t use Jackson’s anything, it gives the rest of us hives,” Isaac mutters. Then he flicks a side look at Lydia, under cover of transferring chopped peppers to the bowel by Derek’s elbow. “Us werewolves, anyway.”

“Don’t you need garlic?” Lydia says, with a poisonously sweet smile. She waits till Isaac glances around, realizes Scott is preoccupied with scraping meat out of the pan, and then reluctantly edges over to the pantry. “Oh, no, it’s out there but I think a few bulbs are hanging up in the drying room. Just make sure you don’t grab the angelica again, wouldn’t want to give everyone weeping pustules. Except the banshee, of course.”

“I…wasn’t planning on splashing myself with anything in particular, except possibly a quick shower,” Peter says. He makes a note to himself to add ‘banshee’ to his search queries—the Styx Plus site had had links to entity-specific forums—and then moves over as, white-faced, Isaac scoots up to try and hide himself in Scott’s shadow.

“Lydia,” Scott says, finally looking up. He hands Isaac the pan and spatula, and then crosses the kitchen to dig out a family-size canister of garlic powder. “Shower sounds good. Most alcohol-based perfumes irritate our noses, anyway. Um, though, if you like that kind of thing, we can figure out something. Reroute the vents or whatever.”

“If you’re talking about the bubble bath, that was just him being an asshole,” Derek says. And then, as Lydia smirks to herself, Derek looks over at her. “Can you not freak him out again? I’m supposed to go see how you bribe cops, I don’t want to end up cuddling him all afternoon.”

Lydia raises her brows. “And we told Erica to stop imagining things.”

Derek blinks, then flushes red. “That’s not what I meant! I meant that—it’s a tip! For controlling wolf-outs!”

“It _is_ a tip, and would you just leave them alone, honestly?” Scott sighs. He walks over to Derek, absently slapping his hand over whatever Isaac is doing on his phone—probably linked to Erica, there’s a likeness with that deeply salacious smile—and then hooks his hand over Derek’s shoulder as he squares up to Lydia. “Peter, look, just hang out with Stiles. Panic time’s over, he’ll be ready to kick back anyway. It’s no big deal, you’ll have fun.”

“Also, don’t squabble over the check, it’s all on the pack card anyway, werewolf healing isn’t perfect against fungal infections so put something on the ground, and remember to pick up at the deli on the way back,” Lydia says. She goes back to her typing, but with a pointed backwards roll of her shoulders, making it clear she was just ending her break and not at all obeying Scott. “And if you have to leave before it’s over, even if it’s against your will, leave a note or a sign or something. A bloodstain. Something.”

Scott looks simultaneously irritable and mournful. “It’s a…this one girlfriend of his…anyway. Yeah. So, not that he’s going to let it happen, but try not to get kidnapped before you do it.”

“Right,” Peter says after a moment. “Yes. I’ll…keep that in mind. And I’m afraid I need to go do some more work now. Please let me know when the food is ready, I’ll be upstairs again.”

* * *

As promised, Stiles returns just as the rest of the pack’s finishing lunch. He scarfs down a few tamales while updating Scott and Lydia on the hunter situation, checks in with Erica about something she’s doing with some gang of…cunning men roadies?…and then he turns to Peter. “Hey, so, you still up for it?” he says. “I need to run this—well, okay, we gotta get rid of bodies, and the sooner you learn that the better, unfortunately, but after that I figured we could go check out the five senses garden next to the preserve. See how you’re adjusting, all that, and then get a milkshake or a coffee after.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Peter says.

Stiles looks a little closer at him, but before Peter can determine why, the other man turns and heads for the garage, gesturing for Peter to follow.

Peter’s prepared himself for any number of gruesome sights, but all he’s greeted with is the faint, but completely ignorable, smell of dried blood and beginning decay, and a pair of very full duffel bags stashed in the back of Stiles’ SUV. He wonders for a moment if giving more room to his imagination might be worse, and then reminds himself that _that_ , at least, he can control. And firmly turns himself around and faces forward as Stiles pulls out onto the driveway.

“So how’s work?” Stiles asks.

“Fine. It’s fine.” Then Peter takes a deep breath, and carefully pulls his claws out of the door panel. The puncture marks are unmistakable, but there’s no point in adding structural damage, too. “That is…nothing terribly urgent at the moment, since you’ve agreed to put your matter on the backburner. I have a meeting with my managing partner still on my calendar for Friday, but I’m sure I can get out of it eventually.”

“Yeah, okay.” Stiles needs to make a left, so he pulls himself up over the wheel to look for incoming traffic. He also sees Peter’s door, then shrugs and waves off Peter’s apology. “Forget it, we’re gonna have to refurbish the back anyway. Jackson fucked up his runes again and they’re more like permanent marker than pencil. We’ll just have to buy yet _another_ rental and stash it for when we need one we can trash, I guess.”

Peter closes his mouth over the next thing trying to get out of it, which is about half a dozen questions at once. “Mmm.”

“So, anything you want to ask?” Stiles says, flicking him a shrewd look. They finally pull out and in short order are cruising down the road to the preserve. “For the record, I’m showing you this kind of stuff not because you have to do it all the time, but because when you gotta do it, you really need to do it properly.”

“Oh, good, and here I was afraid that my life would now resemble that part of _Pulp Fiction_ over and over again,” Peter mutters.

Stiles laughs, startling Peter. It’s not exactly unexpected, but it’s…it is very relaxed, and genuinely appreciative, and yet, the other man doesn’t come off like a coldblooded psychopath. Nor does he seem like a jaded, benumbed killer, who’s simply done this so many times that he no longer sees anything but the motions. He just seems to be living his life, as well as he can.

“You kind of came in at a bad time,” Stiles says. “It’s not like this all the time, really. And Scott and I try not to introduce people to werewolves when it _is_ being like this, because either that terrifies them or it gets you the complete nutjobs who wish it was. Believe me, I’d rather be kicking back with a beer and the newest rollout of SWarcraft—”

“Warcraft?” Peter says.

“No, SWarcraft. It’s basically a World of Warcraft hack to make the supernatural stuff accurate.” Stiles makes the face of a long-term, reluctant addict. “I gotta admit, the trolls are as bad as Reddit, ‘cause God, it’s still set in a world that doesn’t exist, do we really need to flame over whether a darach could control a sentient swamp or not? I mostly keep going back because the virtual spell creator helps me work out casting real-life casting kinks.”

“Magic’s that structured?” Peter says after a moment. “You can develop that sort of rules-based testing environment, that accurately?”

Stiles looks over, then grins. He’s different from how he was as Peter’s client—well, he’s still Peter’s client, but pre-werewolf anyway—when he could be pleased and amused, but there was a little distance, come to think of it. Perfectly understandable, neither of them really seemed to be in it for more than quick gratification with a side of mutual intellectual appreciation, and that was about right considering the likelihood that they’d move in the same circles at any other time.

But now it feels like…as cliché as it sounds, it feels like they’re having actual conversations, and not merely exchanging information, or testing each other’s witty repartee. Obviously they’ll be getting to know each other much better, but Peter also feels like Stiles might have reasons to _want_ to do so, aside from it being useful, or convenient, or anything like that. Which is strange, considering the man only has even stronger considerations now for not making it personal.

“Show you later, I think you’re gonna get into it,” Stiles says. “But what was I say—right. So it’s not all murder and evidence-tampering. There _is_ a lot of hunting, because you gotta burn off that full moon urge, but I don’t think you’re a vegetarian.”

“No. No, I’m not. And I’m not that disturbed about the homicide either.” Peter catches the look on Stiles’ face change and flushes before he can help himself. He looks out his window, half-absently scratching at his jaw to try and override the heat in his cheeks. “Which I’m sure you noticed. Which may or may not put me into the category of nutjobs you’d prefer to filter out—”

“You can be cool with killing. Can even get into it. I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I have a victory dance and I use it,” Stiles says, chuckling. He’s a lot less mocking about it than Peter was expecting. “It’s more like, when that just becomes your go-to, and then it’s your favorite hobby, and _then_ it’s your OCD habit. That’s when it’s kind of a problem for us. ‘cause we _do_ live in a world where we can’t just leave stuff like the shit in the back lying around, however justified it’d be.”

“Point taken,” Peter says. He rubs at his face some more, then turns back to Stiles. “Well. So. Private crematory.”

Stiles pulls himself up straight, nodding. “Yeah, so Mom’s pack has been around here for ages. They used to live in a house out in the woods, but my grandmother thought that that looked too weird with suburbia springing up and moved us to town. So she donated most of the land to the preserve, but we kept back a little, and also some hunting rights and easements, that kind of stuff.”

Now that, Peter is on firm footing with, and he has to admit he’s curious about it since he’s not heard of any of it before. He starts asking questions, Stiles answers them, and they chat about the impressively thorough measures Stiles’ pack has taken to downplay their presence in and around the town over the decades. And that carries them through the preserve and up to the small, squat concrete block of a building, which is the entrance to a hidden tunnel network, containing, among other things, the crematory.

“So some of this really is just like a horror film,” Stiles admits, firing it up.

A very brisk, professional horror film, where everything is done with plastic drop cloths and disinfectants of both the mass-market and magical kind, but yes. Peter does his best, and even manages to retain most of what Stiles says about disjointing and blood containment, but the smell eventually gets to him and he has to go up and wait outside. Downwind, per Stiles’ suggestion.

Which throws him very briefly, until he pulls out his phone and taps in a query, and immediately gets instructions on how to position himself.

“This app really is a brilliant idea,” Peter says when Stiles finds him sitting on a boulder and browsing the section on extended pack relationships. “I have no idea—well, literally, I have no idea how people learned before it, but I can imagine it was very…”

“Medieval. It was pretty Dark Ages bad.” Stiles glances around, then hops up onto the rock next to Peter. His body warmth brushes over Peter’s side, and when Peter looks up, Stiles gives him a rueful look that’s just a little too studied, just before casually slinging his arm over Peter’s shoulders. For purposes of bracing himself as he looks over Peter’s shoulder, breath puffing across Peter’s cheek, smelling strongly but not unpleasantly of the vervain-based cleaner. “Yeah. When my mom died, I wasn’t that old, and my dad wasn’t a werewolf, so we lost most of the pack right away, and the ones that stayed were all kids like me. We—we really do need packs, we’re not just weaker without them, it messes with our heads too. So I had to figure out a way to get people up to speed really fast, before we got steamrolled by another pack.”

Peter glances over, then covers his phone with his hand but doesn’t put it away. “But you’re well-established now, aren’t you? That’s my impression.”

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job now, yeah,” Stiles says. He sits back, but keeps his arm lying across Peter’s back. It’s not a heavy weight, not oppressive or anything like that, but it’s certainly…difficult to ignore, and Stiles very much knows it. He grins at Peter and it’s just as warm as before, but there’s a more…there’s a sharper quality to his affection. “We’re not in a growth phase, if that’s what you’re asking. But we also don’t go around just biting everybody who almost dies in front of us. Man, if that was how we worked, we’d be the size of a small city.”

Then he half-turns his head and coughs into his shoulder, making a sound that bears a great deal of similarity to _Scott_. But he doesn’t take his eyes off Peter for a second, and when Peter twists his shoulders slightly, Stiles just widens his smile and leans forward again.

“You know, I wasn’t planning on it, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think about it. Once in a while. I thought you’d make a good one,” he says, very low, very close. He shifts up so he’s slightly higher on his knees than Peter is, looking down. His hand brushes up against Peter’s throat where the beginnings of a tight, breathless little knot of a whimper are starting to catch. “Smart, ruthless, flexible. Curious, but not stupid about it. I was pretty sure if I offered, you’d ask a shitload of questions first no matter how bad off you were.”

Peter swallows, and it sticks a little, and he can’t quite bring himself to clear his throat. “So you just bit me, if I recall,” he says, in a murmur, because he can’t go any louder without sounding constipated.

“Yeah, well, you were kind of bleeding out, I didn’t want you to get so distracted by the info dump that you forgot about it. Because you do tend to get a little sidetracked, but it’s cool, I like that too,” Stiles says. He’s so close that Peter thinks he can look straight through the man’s wide, wide pupils, and down into an endlessly dark hunger. “And you know, you’re really hot. Really, really hot.”

Long, firm fingers wrap around Peter’s wrist, sending a shiver up his arm and then down his spine. His arm gets moved off his lap, and then another hand slides around the side of his neck, pushing a thumb under his chin to tip it up. That whimper in his throat seems to go molten, edges running out so it turns instead into a low groan.

“Like, every time I came in, I wanted to just bend you over and rip off those suits of yours, and lick the hell out of your hole. Lick it till you weren’t even screaming anymore, you know, you wouldn’t even have the air for that, and then I’d fuck you over your files and make you come all over them. And then take you home, and do it again, and maybe not ever let you go back to work,” Stiles tells him. Stroking the underside of Peter’s jaw with his thumb, grinning like—like—like a _wolf_ , like something that likes blood and night and sweet, hot, tender flesh. “So. Peter.”

Peter emits a noise that can be described, charitably, as a choking moan. He tries again. “Yes?”

“What kind of milkshake do you want?” Stiles says. He looks at Peter, holds Peter, for another second. And then he gets up. He dusts himself off and jumps off the rock, and then looks up the hill where the car is parked. “Man, you know, it was a really good thing you couldn’t smell me back then. I think even you might’ve slammed the door on it. Anyway, we should get going. I did promise I’d have you back in time for dinner.”

Two minutes later, Peter gets off the rock. Stiles doesn’t comment on it, just keeps talking about the SWarcraft spell simulator, and some other ways Peter can start experimenting safely with magic. Also, hands Peter someone’s jacket to throw over his lap as they drive out of the preserve.

The five senses garden is nice. The milkshake, bought from a food truck in the parking lot, is nice. Stiles is nice, and considerate, and on their way out a girl walking her dog flirts with him, because he’s gone to trash their cups while Peter gets into the car. Peter…actually was not particularly jealous at the thought of dating a man that Chris Argent is already sleeping with, because frankly, he has other, more likely to seriously injure him, concerns about Chris. But he stares at this idiot girl with her silly toy dog, and he remembers the way Stiles had looked at him in the preserve, with the alphas’ bodies at their feet, or when he’d stumbled back into his own office with a _gunshot_ wound—

He remembers how he’d had all of the man’s focus on him. And suddenly, he thinks he understands the attraction of murder.

“I think for our second date, we should go out to eat,” Peter says when Stiles finally gets back to the car.

Stiles pauses. Looks at the window Peter’s got half-rolled down on his side, and then at the mindless matching game that Peter is studiously playing on his phone. Does not comment about how these are the top two recommendations for quickly disguising and/or altering emotional scent markers in his app, and just gets behind the wheel. “Like dinner?”

“I think I need to roll up my sickness alibi anyway, and I do have a social life that will notice if I’m out too long. Kill two birds with one stone,” Peter says, looking over, with a pleasant smile. “My treat, even. I also owe you a little thanks for not letting me die, after all.”

“Well, I’m not going to turn down free food,” Stiles says after a moment. The corners of his mouth quirk over and his eyes are glinting a little suspiciously, but he just chuckles as he pulls the car out. “Do I have to dress up or anything?”

Peter snorts. “Oh, Stiles, I wouldn’t do that to you. It’s a dinner for you, I’ll make sure it suits _your_ preferences.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, finally these two are getting somewhere. I honestly had no intention of letting this story get this long, but here we are at eight chapters, and still going.


	9. Chapter 9

Derek follows Peter into the room, despite the attraction of a bare-chested Scott wrestling with Jackson in the backyard. “Because I can _smell_ you’re up to something,” he insists. “I can actually smell that now. And it’d be great if you weren’t _up to something_.”

“And this would be amusing if I didn’t have a client meeting and two inter-pack treaty talks to prep for,” Lydia says, pushing back from her desk. “What are you paying?”

Peter gives up on shaking his nephew and just leans past Derek to shut the door, and then he pauses there to orient himself. Lydia and Jackson apparently keep a separate apartment of their own, but they also mostly claim the downstairs guest bedroom in Chris’ house, which has its own attached full bath, a separate door to the backyard, and a crystal light fixture that Peter thinks might be genuine Waterford. Also, the bed looks exactly like the bed in a recent _Vanity Fair_ profile of a well-known actress turned critically-acclaimed director, and there’s a small stack of boxes stacked in the corner that are all emblazoned with Prada logos.

“Well, aside from the pleasure of being able to orchestrate someone else’s life, I can offer you either information on various local officials’ peccadilloes, or my London tailor’s phone number,” Peter says. He notes the dismissive glint in Lydia’s eyes—and the sharpened interest—and hastily raises his hand. “Or both, but it’ll have to be sequential because my tailor doesn’t rearrange his waiting list for anyone short of a head of state.”

Lydia reconsiders, and then leans over and pulls the decorative sham off a nearby chair. “We did just lose our contact at the sanitation department, and Jackson’s no longer welcome at the Armani atelier, unfortunately. If they don’t want an accidental transformation, they shouldn’t have a carpet full of pins,” she says. “Sit. I assume this is about Stiles.”

Peter sits, and then props his laptop up on one knee. “Human blood or any blood?”

Derek sits, too, on the edge of the bed, ignoring Lydia’s hissed command to stop wrinkling her Egyptian cotton. “Didn’t we just kill everybody that needs to be killed?”

“Does he have to be here,” Lydia says flatly.

Peter sighs. “Well, no, but I assure you, the property damage isn’t worth it. And he occasionally listens, so he might get a useful education out of this. Consider it your act of kindness for the week.”

Derek snarls. And then, when he realizes neither of them are paying any attention, he sighs and he takes out his phone and raises his thumbs over the screen.

Quicker than a blink, Lydia’s hand snaps out and covers his phone. “Claw me and you’ll find out how long it takes to regenerate your eardrums. And trust me, texting Scott is not going to save you,” she says sweetly, and then, still blocking Derek’s phone, she turns back to Peter. “I think you’re jumping ahead of yourself here. First let’s talk about the pick-up. First impressions are critical.”

“That’s what I meant,” Peter says irritably. “If I’m going to need to take off my suitcoat before we go, is it better if I cut myself, or if I drop a raw steak on my sleeve? While helping make pack dinner, obviously.”

Lydia blinks hard, then releases Derek’s phone and sits back slowly. She looks Peter over and then smiles, very slowly and very indulgently. “Thank God,” she says. “I’d seen your work product when we were vetting you, but based on these past few days, I was starting to wonder if we’d lost all that in the transition. My bubble bath, Peter? How jejeune.”

“I wasn’t texting anybody, I was just looking something up,” Derek mutters. He jerks his phone in close to himself, then shoves it away and runs his hand through his hair instead. “Why do you even have to get bloody? Can’t you just have a regular date, and then walk in with him? I mean, it’s not like you even have to drop him off, you’re both coming back here.”

“And how did that work out for you when you and Scott went and got your stuff?” Lydia says dryly. “I hear he’s been talking about how there’s no way you can salvage that mattress, and we’ve really got to order you a new one, and he feels so bad now about seeing how badly it was trashed in the fight, he didn’t even think, poor little you were so horrified seeing it that you couldn’t say a word, and kept falling over it in shock.”

Derek shuts up and glowers, which he admittedly does well.

“I wouldn’t start with the suit, first of all,” Lydia says to Peter. “I know he’s expressed a lot of interest in yours, and he _does_ have a kink, but if you go with that one he’ll spend far too long just admiring the clothes.”

Peter sighs. “Well, then I need access to my closet. The one casual outfit they brought me consists of jeans and a shirt I had out because it got stretched out in the dryer, and I’ve been meaning to toss it.”

“You’re thinking in entirely too petty terms, that’s your problem. Leave the logistics for now, set out the framework first.” Lydia shimmies down in her chair an inch and then sweeps her gaze slowly up and down Peter. It’s…strangely disinterested, considering the clear carnal intent, and for that reason Peter can’t help an uneasy shift in place. “Tell me you’ve got something in jersey or pure cotton.”

“Not flannel?” Peter asks.

“Do you want to be one of those ridiculous matchy-matchy couples?” Lydia scoffs. “Something that you can unbutton at the top, but not all the way. You want to flash throat but leave a little mystery. And jeans, yes, although before I give my approval I’m going to want to check fit, especially mid-thigh and up. I do hope you weren’t about to book somewhere that requires a suitjacket.”

Peter finishes typing his notes while looking up at her. “I might _enjoy_ fine culture and _appreciate_ a little social decorum, but that doesn’t mean I insist on it. Especially not if I want opportunities to lick blood off my lips.”

“So steakhouse?” Lydia says, not batting an eye. “That’s the classic, yes, but it’s a little safe too. This is Stiles we’re talking about here, you can’t let him get bored.”

“I was thinking that Mediterranean place on South Street, actually, the one with the grilled lamb meze platter,” Peter says.

Derek’s cycled through irritation, confusion, irritated confusion, and now, somehow, he’s managed to land on grudging interest. “That place where you eat with your hands?” he says.

“They give you pita for scooping, actually. But essentially, yes,” Peter says.

Lydia reaches over without looking, and opens up a fresh window on her laptop. She Googles the restaurant and then glances at her screen. “Dessert menu?”

“Not really their specialty. Or a course I was thinking we’d be forced to get to. Also, the milkshake earlier was bad enough,” Peter says. “And I say that as someone who’s seen just about every variation on sucking possible. I’m not too proud to admit that I can’t top that.”

“Why didn’t you just jump him then?” Derek asks.

“Why don’t you just invite Allison to shower with you, next time you two throw each other around the yard?” Peter snaps.

“Because her dad was standing right there,” Derek snaps back.

Rolling her eyes, Lydia pushes back from her laptop and then reaches down to dig into her purse, which is sitting on the floor by her feet. She doesn’t immediately find what she’s looking for, so she picks it up and puts it on her lap, and keeps digging. “One dating conspiracy at a time, thank you. And Derek, I’m sorry, but yours is a much, much simpler fix, so you’ll just have to wait.”

Derek stares at her. “What part of, Chris Argent already hates my ass, and I had to literally stick my face in Scott’s crotch before he got that I was hitting on him, is simple?”

“Is that what you got out of the app? Dog maneuvers?” Peter says incredulously. “Because I thought it specifically said not to analogize to—”

“That was before all of this, when he was buying me drinks to make up for getting my coat trashed,” Derek says, running his hand over an exasperated grimace. “I mean. I asked him to buy me a drink in the _first_ place, when he asked how he could make it up to me. How do you not get it?”

“ _Fine_ , we’ll do you first,” Lydia says. She takes her hands out of her purse and lays them on top, and gives Derek a look so withering that he automatically jerks up his chin and tilts his throat towards her. “Make out with Allison where Scott can see you two, make sure she’s on top, and then make sure she’s the one who talks to her father, because she’ll know to get Stiles involved too. Scott will just try to handle it on his own, so he doesn’t have to ‘bother’ anybody, and that never goes well.” 

Derek makes a visible effort to force down his chin. He stares at her, glowering, and she looks coolly back. And then Derek blinks. He moves his hand slightly, as if he’s thinking about saying something, and then instead he pulls his phone out again and starts typing.

Texting, actually. To Allison, asking if she’s got some time to help him clean out his newly-allotted space in the upstairs closet.

“Finally, someone who can just take an order,” Lydia mutters, and then she turns back to Peter. “You need dessert. If you can’t deal with his oral fixation, you’re looking in entirely the wrong place for this—”

“Lydia, if I have to, I can deal with it. I just don’t think getting into a pissing contest is going to advance anything,” Peter sighs. “Look, I’ve learned my lesson, I know I can’t compete with him in that arena, not with werewolf instincts—that’s not the point. The point is, he needs to see that I can understand him, can understand _this_. I can adapt to this life. The dating isn’t just to make things difficult for difficulty’s sake, you know.”

Her eyes narrow and Peter almost adds a snide comment on supernaturally competitive drives, and their correspondingly negative effect on productive outcomes. But he restrains himself, and the initial glacial suspicion in her gaze gradually…it doesn’t soften, but it definitely transitions, to something much more like surprise. And possibly a little respect.

“Well, then skip dessert. But when you leave, don’t just come straight back here. And don’t argue with me, I’ve known Stiles for far longer. I’ve seen him through more disastrous relationships than you can even imagine,” Lydia finally says. She puts her hand back in her purse, pulls out a compact and lip gloss, and begins to touch herself up. “Go…well, some private place of your choosing, but it needs to be at least two miles from here, and a mile from any part of the preserve. And then just talk to him like a normal person.”

“But we’re werewolves,” Derek mutters.

“But if you can still be an idiot, then logically you should also be capable of being sensible,” Lydia snaps. “Now, it’s going to cost three summerweight suits to get Erica out of the way. Derek’s going to be keeping Allison and Scott occupied, Chris already doesn’t want to see this, and I’ll take an introduction to the deputy mayor as covering the rest of the pack. Deal?”

“Deal,” Peter sighs.

* * *

 _Cool, I’ve been wanting to eat there,_ Stiles texts back, upon Peter’s suggestion of a restaurant and time. _But can we go a half-hour later? I have some meetings out in the preserve._

“Translation: Alpha’s beating the shit out of dumbasses,” Erica says, rummaging through Peter’s underwear drawer, with far too many long sniffs. She stops and makes a rubbing motion with her right hand, which is completely submerged in the drawer, grins, and then moves on. “Hmmm. Definitely boxers, but how snug, that’s the question. I mean, it’s not for me, so let’s not tart you up too much.”

Peter sits on his own bed, for the first time ever as a werewolf, and idly wonders how the pack manages the constant bloodstains. “I _thought_ you were getting her out of the way,” he hisses at Lydia.

“I am. For the date. For getting Stiles to shut up long enough to let you say anything? Obviously she’s helping with the wardrobe. She’s dated him, I haven’t,” Lydia says. She riffles quickly through Peter’s shirts, pulls out one and holds it up.

On cue, Erica looks over. “Huh.” She tilts her head. “Do your nipples show through that one? If so, how much? Are we talking peaks or full-on George Clooney batsuit?”

“Before I answer that, whose gratification is this relevant to?” Peter says.

Erica beams at him. “Baby’s learning!” she crows. “Okay, so, both, but trust me, Stiles and nipples? _Gold_.”

“These?” Lydia says, flapping a pair of jeans next to the shirt.

As terrified as Peter is of leaving the two alone without any sort of supervision…he has to admit that they’re already at that point. Also, to think very nasty thoughts about his nephew as he hastily retreats to the living room to catch up on work, because Derek just had to pick today to ask Scott and Allison to help him install the new doors in his apartment. The benefits of a suspiciously-relaxed and much more even-tempered nephew are handily outweighed by Peter’s fear that Erica’s also taking samples for nefarious scenting purposes; he’s fairly sure he overheard her refusing to wash the blanket Derek accidentally mauled Peter on for something along those lines.

“She tried,” Lydia says witheringly, taser pointed at Erica’s unrepentant head. “Outfit’s on the bed, reservation’s set, now have you ensured that there will be no interruptions on your side?”

Upon Peter’s return to work, he’s inundated with commiserations from his fellow coworkers about the unfortunate burglary—Peter barely remembers to read the police report Stiles submitted on his behalf in the parking lot—and sick leave coincidence. Of course, what they all really want to know is whether the break-in was for any of his client files, and if so, how likely said clients are to want disproportionate retribution and whether this retribution might extend to the rest of the firm. An irritating number of them smell as happy about it as they are fearful.

Peter fobs them off with a detailed description of the rectal exam his doctor allegedly gave him to determine the source of his violent bout of food poisoning, and then checks over the files himself. Everything’s in order, and he can even verify by smell that Jerry is, in fact, an honestly corrupt guard, and hadn’t set a foot inside his office. A few other people have, and he doesn’t recognize their scent, but it’s always paired with either Chris’ or Stiles’ scents, so he thinks he can safely assume they belong to the investigating cops.

He can also detect that Chris spent an awful lot of time examining Peter’s windows and handling Peter’s pendulum desk toys, while Stiles seems to have preferred Peter’s bookshelves and framed excerpts from medieval legal manuscripts. And Peter’s desk chair. Peter stands over it, sniffing, and when he’s interrupted by his legal assistant, he realizes to his acute embarrassment that he’d been there for a good two minutes.

“Sorry, but Tyler’s just walked in and has been asking whether we can move up the status meeting,” Heather says.

Heather has been working for Peter for close to three years, by far the longest of any assistant he’s ever had. She is a pretty, petite blonde who’s been surprisingly laidback about the recurring rumor that they’re sleeping together, which Peter had assumed had something to do with her weekend skeet-shooting hobby and a mysterious rash of vandals targeting the side mirrors on cars belonging to especially gossipy colleagues. However, when Peter looks up, he gets a whiff of something lemony and peppery at the same time, exactly like the smell off Lydia’s closet.

“Oh, yeah, so…I don’t know if anybody outed me yet, but I’m kind of a hedgewitch,” Heather says, closing the door behind her. She shrugs and looks adorably rueful, and then pulls her ever-present charm bracelet out of her sleeve so Peter can note how some of the charms look very like the ones Chris and Stiles carry around. “Stiles’ mom and mine used to hang out. We lost track of each other after his mom died, but he’s kind of a big deal in the local sups community, so I, well, I heard about you and Derek. So, congrats?”

“Ah. Yes. Well, thank you, I think congratulations are appropriate,” Peter says slowly. And makes a note to himself to complain very vigorously until he’s given a directory of all other supernatural people in his life, because Lydia at least has to keep that sort of thing around. “You’ve been an excellent assistant, Heather, and done very well during this last little crisis, so I really don’t see any reason why we can’t continue as before.”

Heather’s scent floods with relief and genuine happiness. “I’m so glad to hear that,” she says, beaming, and oddly, Peter finds himself smiling back. He would have been very annoyed to lose good staff, if only because he hates having to enforce nondisclosure agreements, but he’s hardly that friendly with her outside of work. “Because their pack is awesome, and I wouldn’t mind hanging out with Stiles again, and also? You totally need to use this with Tyler. He’s a quarter fae and he’s got heavy investments in timber up in Oregon, and I heard Stiles and Scott are hooked up with the packs there, and—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Peter says. He takes a deep breath, while Heather looks a little worriedly at him, and then…reminds himself that this is really just business as usual with a new glossary. And also, if he didn’t think much of his managing partner when he thought they were both human, then clearly, this quarter fae nonsense isn’t worth much. “So Tyler knows, and he wants to leverage this?”

“Oh, you have no idea. Elise and I had to cook up a cantrip in the janitor’s closet just to jam his phone so he’d stop trying to call you, and then I had to bribe Mrs. Greenberg with a glamour potion to demand a last-minute meeting with him so he wouldn’t just drive over, like that wouldn’t get him eaten, sparkles be damned,” Heather says, rolling her eyes. Then she frowns. “Hey. So. Um, you really need to prep for Tyler, but can I write that stuff off as work expenses now?

Peter smiles at her again. They don’t have to be friends for him to reward that sort of independent thinking, he decides. And…well, to be honest, it is nice to be genuinely missed, even if he’s sure her feelings aren’t wholly altruistic; actually, he would have been terribly disappointed if they had been. “Elise is a hedgewitch too?”

“No, dhampir. Psychic variety, and she likes feeding on frustration the most, so this place really works out for her,” Heather says. “Here, I’ll make a note to put together a rundown of sups in the firm for you after Tyler’s taken care of. I think I can get it in between your eleven and eleven-forty-five.”

“Good idea,” Peter says, sitting down behind his desk. “And yes, of course you can write that sort of thing off, with appropriate descriptors, obviously. But I think it might be easier if we just set up a miscellaneous overhead account for you two to draw off of. Business is going to be picking up soon, I think, and we all have better things to do than pore over expense reports, don’t we?”

“Absolutely, sir,” Heather grins.

So Peter’s first day back at work ends quite satisfactorily, with his having blackmailed a slew of concessions from a completely blindsided managing partner, who apparently thought that Peter would be too distracted with adjusting to his new life to realize his alpha will _tear_ anyone who tries to take advantage of a pack member.

Well, Peter’s extrapolating, based on the app’s information and on recent observations on pack dynamics in certain situations. He hasn’t exactly gotten that in writing from either Stiles or Scott, and since he has decided to commit to this new life, the first thing he does when he gets back to Chris’ house is ask.

“What? Well, yeah, obviously, and do we need to freak him out or anything now?” Stiles says as he pulls on his coat. “I’m assuming from the big waves of smug rolling off you that he’s already backtracked, but never hurts to leave them a little present at home.”

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary. I do still need the rest of the firm at the moment, and Tyler is a competent managing partner when he’s _not_ attempting to blackmail me,” Peter says. He watches Stiles laugh at that, slightly hungry look lingering in his eye, and then sweep an appreciative look over Peter—who changed before leaving work—so that hunger gets a little more substantial.

That’s two items off the list Lydia emailed him. They reach item three when Peter, apologizing, pulls his bag of sweat-soaked gym clothes off the front passenger seat and then twists between the seats to stuff it in the back, while Stiles has a reasonably long look at his ass. Item four is Peter absently unbuttoning the collar of his Henley—“just because it works for Derek means you’re going to pass up working your own hotness?” according to Erica—while they’re waiting at a stoplight, then scratching at a little dried blood on his chest, courtesy of an involuntary donation from Tyler.

Things derail a little once they get out of the car and into the restaurant, mostly because Stiles casually sticks his hand on the small of Peter’s back and Peter isn’t quite over the alpha siren effect. He and Lydia had vigorously debated using one of those charm strings so Peter just wouldn’t have to deal with it, but Lydia had eventually won by pointing out that one, Stiles is more than good enough to tell that Peter is using it, and two, Stiles absolutely would pickpocket it sooner or later and then there’s Peter trying to meld with Stiles’ neck in public. So Peter just bites the inside of his mouth, and silently thanks Heather for remembering to specify a secluded corner when she made the reservation.

“So this is nice,” Stiles says after their food’s served. He absently nibbles on a babaganoush-smeared wedge of pita, while his eyes track the progression of Peter’s tongue over a lamb kebob, then Peter’s pink-juice-stained finger, and then Peter’s mouth. “Erica and Lydia had a lot of fun, huh.”

Peter does not bite down on his own finger, or wolf out in public. He does, however, grudgingly send a grateful thought Erica’s way for slipping him the tiny bottle of wolfsbane tincture, which of course he already added to his wine. One glass, although perhaps he should’ve ordered the bottle.

“I mean, I know it’s nice to be alive and be an awesome creature of the night and all, but you don’t have to be this thankful,” Stiles goes on. He serves himself some of the lamb chops, along with a good helping of lemon-oil-cured olives, and then slouches so that the topiary by their table hides how he’s using his fangs to scrape the meat from the bone. “Trust me, we’ll make up for it in late-night calls for bail.”

“Fortunately that’s something I’m already accustomed to, thanks to my nephew,” Peter says dryly. He takes one more sip of wine, then makes himself put that down. “Lydia’s started sending me information about the pack finances. It’ll take a week or so before I can start making solid contributions—not in any way due to anything except the complexity of my banking arrangements, I assure you.”

Stiles shrugs. “No rush, we all make pretty good money ourselves, so it’s not like we need it.”

“Well, but it’s fair. And nothing develops a sense of accountability like having a vested financial interest,” Peter says. “God knows that Derek’s incidents involving cars went down dramatically when we started making him pay for his own insurance.”

“Yeah, so, does he really live off romance novel royalties?” Stiles asks, with a lightly incredulous laugh. “The book covers, okay. I could see that even before Erica went trolling online and ordered us the entire Night’s Hero series, but writing them?”

“Co-writes,” Peter says. He decides he might as well eat, while he frantically tries to figure out how to drag this back on-course, and reaches for the labneh. “He started reading the books they were putting his face on, and made a comment to someone at the publishing house that he could come up with better action scenes. From what I understand, his co-writer handles all the dialogue and he handles the rest.”

After a second, Stiles laughs again. He still sounds disbelieving but it’s softer; he’s obviously giving up the battle with reality. “So, if I pick up one of his books, is the villain going to be an attractive blue-eyed, dark-haired lawyer?”

Peter actually hadn’t been thinking as he twisted his finger in his mouth, trying to get an irritating streak of chili oil out from under his nail, but when he glances up he sees Stiles’ pupils widen. And he can smell the arousal on the other man, smell it and feel it filter down into his own body, as if he’s warming himself against it.

“Ah,” he says, blinking, pulling his hand down. “If you read the early ones, yes, a few. Talia—my sister, his mother, she made him stop. I honestly didn’t mind, since at least that meant he was listening to me some of the time, but she doesn’t…exactly have my sense of humor.”

“Really? He really used you?” Stiles says. He runs his hand back over the top of his head, then flops so both his arms are thrown over the top of the booth. “Wow. So what’s the basis of this feud, exactly? Did you ruin his leather coat? Mock his hair? It must have been serious.”

“I was the one who told his mother he was seeing Kate Argent,” Peter says. He pauses, then shakes his head and drinks a good gulp of wine. Chris was right, Derek’s actually come out better than anyone could’ve hoped for, and yet that doesn’t quite make the memories bearable. “I think he’s forgiven me for that, actually. It’s just that—”

Stiles snorts. “If he hasn’t, I have a lot of graves I could walk him around.”

“He was very young, and very much in love, or so he thought. And she was playing a long game—we didn’t have her on record saying it was all an act until well into discovery,” Peter says. “And anyway, I don’t think he was mad at me for that as much as he was for talking his mother into pressing charges. Derek just wanted to drop it and forget about it. He didn’t really realize that the Argents weren’t going to.”

“Yeah. Yeah, well, the offer still stands. He’s going to have to get rid of that attitude if he wants to make it as a werewolf, especially with Scott as his alpha,” Stiles mutters. He pushes up and grabs up some pita wedges, and scoops them into the hummus. Then he looks up at Peter, a flicker of surprise going over his face. “Relax, I’m not going to traumatize him. I think he’s got plenty of that going already, even if it kind of works for him. You’re a lot more worried about each other than you come off.”

Peter raises his brows. Granted, Derek’s exhibited a few more notes of sympathy than he normally shows in an entire year, but Peter fully expects that to wear off now that his nephew appears to have filled up his bed again.

“He totally cornered me—well, tried to corner me, you really need to tell him that his looming up from behind shit is bad on alphas—and told me not to fuck you up, or he’d test out the whole killing alpha to be alpha thing,” Stiles says, looking amused. He stuffs a hummus-laden wedge into his mouth, pink tongue curling out to clean off his lower lip, and then swigs some beer to wash it down. “Something about not seeing you so rattled since his mom was in a car accident and you had to watch him and his sisters till she was out of the ICU.”

“That was a while ago,” Peter says, too sharply. When Stiles stiffens, so does he, instinct telling him to curl up and drop down and whine for mercy.

He doesn’t go that far; his self-control’s come along considerably since the last of the Alpha pack died. But he does allow himself to duck his head and bury himself in what remains of his wine, to stop that damnable itching between his shoulders.

“Hey, sorry. I wasn’t actually trying to poke you.” Stiles glances around, then slides over. He hooks his arms back over the top of the booth, letting the back of his curled hand brush over the side of Peter’s neck as he goes. “Whatever that’s about, it’s yours and Derek’s thing. Well, so long as it doesn’t pop up in the form of a long-lost enemy or anything like that. But anyway, pack doesn’t mean we have to know everything about each other. You can keep some stuff to yourself.”

“There’s not really much to keep,” Peter mutters into his now-empty glass. He feels Stiles’ hand against his neck, warm and grounding, and he takes a deep breath. Puts the glass down and looks over, and if he happens to lean his nape into Stiles’ arm—well, it’s deliberate, and it makes him feel better, and he wants to. “Talia’s husband was in Africa at the time, for business, and it took a couple weeks just to track him down. I’m not the nurturing type and believe me, we were all glad to get him back. I’m still a little shocked that she listed me as her first emergency contact.”

“Derek said you ended up taking a semester out from law school, that’s not exactly hands-off,” Stiles says. He leans a little closer. His eyes are focused on Peter, and it’s not lust, exactly, that’s pulling their strings. It’s something both slower and deeper, and it makes Peter shiver more badly than if it’d just been a leer. “Besides, definitely can’t be throwing stones on my side. I might’ve been born alpha, but if you think I was ready when my mom died, you should look at the list of all the people who left the pack.”

Peter can’t help a snort, even as he turns and presses his cheek against Stiles’ forearm, per his currently-hazy recollections of the manual’s tips on sympathetic body language. “I don’t suppose any of them have come back, and acknowledged they’ve been proven wrong?”

“Hah, that’d be funny, wouldn’t it?” Stiles says, a glint of black humor in his eyes. Then he shakes his head, sobering. “No, because they’ve all died. It’s hard being pack with a teenage alpha, but it’s even harder living as an omega. And you know, fuck it, if they’d come back, I wouldn’t have made a big deal out of it. I’d have just been glad they survived.”

He looks over Peter, lips pressing tightly down over the last word. He’s very much older than his chronological age in that moment, older and wearier, but still, so intent.

Stiles starts to move, and a soft, inquiring, churring sound comes out of Peter’s throat. Where, he has no idea, but…it feels right. He makes it again, trying not to think about the mechanics so he won’t inadvertently screw it up, and pushes his head up along Stiles’ arm. The glint comes back into Stiles’ eyes, hotter and darker, and as Peter feels his chin go up Stiles’ gaze dips under it, to the softest part of his throat. A very low, very satisfied rumble rolls out of Stiles.

He stoops forward and Peter breathes in, and then…Stiles huffs in frustration and twists his head away. “Okay,” he mutters. “Shit. Um, so dinner was—this was really great—”

“It’s not gratitude,” Peter says, words suddenly rushing back on him. He pushes up as Stiles leans back. Too quickly—Stiles claps his hand over the back of Peter’s neck, eyes widening in alarm, and Peter almost slides off the bench and onto his knees. Has to dig his claws into one thigh to keep where he is, and just look the other man in the eye. “And if it is, it’s gratefulness that I didn’t just have a quick fuck and then walk away, that I’ve been able to see you like you really are. I’m here because I want you, Stiles. I want my alpha, but more than that, I want _you_.”

“God _damn_ it,” Stiles rasps, nearly a growl, and then he drags Peter over and kisses him, before Peter’s even started to shiver at his voice.

Peter whines into the other man’s mouth, sagging forward. One of his legs slips off the seat and knocks into the table, setting all the plates to rattling. Stiles makes a half-irritated, half-laughing sound, still kissing Peter soundly, and pulls his other arm down and does— _something_ —it’s magic, anyway, the hairs on Peter’s neck that aren’t already lifting into Stiles’ fingers go stiff, and Peter really couldn’t care to see.

Stiles lunges forward, shoving them up against the end of the bench, his free hand now firmly pressed to Peter’s waist, hot and branding and still much too far from where Peter wants it. Peter gropes, bangs into the table again, and then gets his hands to Stiles’ hips just as he feels his shirt being peeled up over searching, tickling, provoking fingers. He moans, hangs sucking from Stiles’ lower lip as his head slowly sinks down against the side of the booth, dead weight that only Stiles’ hand curled over his neck is keeping up.

And then—they’re sitting apart again. Breathing hard, Stiles blinks once, scruffs at his hair, and then blinks again. Shakes his head. Tugs at his rucked shirt-collar.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. So my illusion charms are good but they’re not all-out balls-deep fuck good, and I’d really like to do that, so…check. Like now.”

Still folded up in the corner, Peter feels the extra warmth where Stiles’ body had pressed slowly fade. He can taste a little blood on his lip where he ran up against Stiles’ teeth; the spot is healing at less than instantaneous, but it’s still healing, and Peter whines just at that.

Stiles looks over, then jerks his head away and presses his hand over his eyes. “Fuck, stop that. I—Peter. Come on. Sit up.”

Peter sits up.

“Pull your shirt down,” Stiles says into his hand.

He pulls that down.

“Okay.” Stiles peeks out between his fingers, then swears into his palm a little more. His shoulders roll back, hesitate, and then set firmly in place as he raises his head. That odd _frisson_ of magic washes over Peter again, before Stiles lifts his hand and snaps his fingers loudly. “Check! Check, check, oh, my God, check.”

Peter touches his cheek with a shaking hand, for no particular reason, and curses himself and fumbles out his credit card. Which squirts from his fingers, and thank God at least one of them has working werewolf reflexes.

“Oh, good,” Stiles says, slapping the card down and grinning at Peter over it.

Peter whines again. Stiles freezes, except for his pupils, which are blowing out, and then looks down at the card. Makes a face at himself, shoves it back at Peter and then produces a thick roll of cash from somewhere.

“Whatever, you can get me the next one,” he says, tossing the bills down. Then he grabs Peter’s arm and drags Peter out of the booth. Not that Peter is in any way protesting.

* * *

The two of them stumble out of the restaurant and into the parking lot, where Stiles hauls Peter around and slams him up against the car in the way that—if Peter were still human, would probably spoil the mood. But since Peter isn’t, the brief burst of pain is just a sparking, enticing prelude to getting his alpha flat up against him, both hands sliding up the back of Peter’s shirt, mouth hot and wet and snaking its way down the side of Peter’s throat.

Fisting his hands in Stiles’ shirt, Peter drags the other man as close as he can, and then jams his ass back and spreads his knees, and pulls Stiles into the fresh space he’s just opened up. He’s slightly shorter than the other man anyway and now he’s moaning into Stiles’ jaw instead of his mouth, but he seems to have lost the ability to go anywhere but down, and he’s perfectly happy that way.

At least, he thinks he is, and then Stiles _bites_ him, bites him, sharp teeth and hurt flesh and the sudden salt sting of blood in the air, and then Peter is trying to claw his way back up Stiles, licking and lapping at whatever he can reach, scrambling to get his arm over Stiles’ shoulder before his knees go. His whole body shudders and his bones seem like they’re trying to shake directly out of his skin, and deep under that, he feels like Stiles just reached directly into his chest and closed long fangs around his heart, and it feels _right_.

“Oh, my God, I am so glad I bit you,” Stiles gasps, pulling his head back. He licks at Peter’s mouth, teasing, brushing his lips against Peter’s and letting the blood on them stick their mouths together, far too briefly. His one hand slides to Peter’s hip, jerking Peter back up, and then he cranes his head over and presses the flat of his tongue to Peter, starting at the collarbone and then following up the bitten tendon. “Fuck, fuck, I knew it, knew you’d be beautiful, knew you’d be such a fucking good were—”

Peter whines and Stiles stops talking like that, like he has his hands all over the strings that make Peter work, and shudders himself. Then, snarling, bites at the spot behind Peter’s ear. His other hand hooks into the top of Peter’s shirt, pulls down, and Peter’s supernatural hearing fixates on the sound of buttons clicking on the pavement. And then the tiny, minute zipping sounds of individual fibers snapping, as Stiles digs in under Peter’s shirt, sucking and nipping his way back around to Peter’s mouth. Two fingers catch at Peter’s nipple and he mewls, hips juddering up into Stiles’ body.

“So fucking _good_ ,” Stiles half-croons, half-sucks, nuzzling at Peter’s jaw. He twists half-over, presses the hard line of his hip up against Peter’s groin. Rocks it, shifting with maddening slowness till he’s got it aligned with Peter’s desperately hard cock. “So good, so good, Peter, you like it too, don’t you, you like—”

“Yes, yes, please, God, yes, anything,” Peter moans. He feels his claws catch in Stiles’ jeans, then whimpers as Stiles nips his lower lip. Forces back his claws and humps against the car, trying to get his knee up, twist himself closer around the other man. “Stiles, please, please, _alpha_ —

Stiles stiffens. Then, somehow, when they’re already so close Peter thinks they’ll have to scratch off the intervening clothes, he jerks Peter up and then slams into him, kissing so fiercely that Peter almost damn well comes from that.

“Jesus, I so owe the girls,” Stiles mumbles, pulling back, just enough to run his tongue over Peter’s bruising lip. He nudges his hip harder at Peter, managing to squeeze the head of Peter’s cock against its curve, and when Peter whines he just laughs and kisses Peter again. “I mean, first with the fucking shirt, like anybody else needs to see your fucking nipples, and oh, _oh_ , hello, so that’s your thing too, well you are so, so lucky, Peter, you are because I will suck them all day, I’ll suck your pretty little nipples till they’re all soft and puffy and like fucking bubblegum—”

Peter lunges at him, as much as is possible, pinned back against the car, and finally catches Stiles’ mouth. Stiles doesn’t seem too mad about it. On the contrary, he forces Peter’s head back again, rubbing his tongue against the roof of Peter’s mouth till Peter’s fangs drop and then he sucks at those, circling them with his tongue, same as his finger’s circling Peter’s nipple, pushing and prodding it hard and aching. Then he flattens his palm over the pebbling peak and rubs that way, tortuously slow, as Peter moans into his mouth.

“Stiles, for the love of God,” Peter finally says, putting all his will, what’s left of it, into prying himself away. “Would you just—”

That’s when Stiles throws him under the car.

Well, when Peter replays it in his head, it’s more of a drop and then kick, but anyway. Peter goes from a melting mess of a man to a coughing, stunned one who’s half-soaked from landing in a puddle. He blinks, shakes his head, and then he’s going to pull his legs out from underneath and ask what the _hell_ Stiles is playing at when he hears a gunshot. Dust and pieces of concrete clip up from the ground about three yards away; squealing tires send more pebbles kicking over the parking lot.

Peter jerks back, and bangs his shoulders into his car’s undercarriage. He hisses, even though he—right, he heals now. He pulls his head in, slaps himself backwards till he comes out the other side, and then scrambles back onto his feet, yanking his phone out as he goes.

He’s just in time to see Stiles dropping like a meteor on the hood of a battered-looking pick-up truck. Stiles lands on his hands, because he’s already twisting his legs up to kick through the windshield.

The truck careens about, barely missing Peter’s car, and then crashes into a luxury SUV that promptly lights up the night with wailing sirens and flashing lights. Grimacing, Stiles skids about on the hood, then plants his claws and waits for the truck to stop shuddering. When it does, he shakes his feet free—the windshield popped out in virtually a single piece, but it looks like he hooked the shade with his toes—and then hops off the truck. He swings around, gun in hand, and peers at the slumped bodies inside the truck.

“Police or medics?” he calls.

“Local news, actually,” Peter says, and shrugs when Stiles looks over. “Can never get your version out too early. Medics now?”

Stiles looks into the truck again, his faint smile dying. “Yeah,” he finally mutters. He puts his gun away, then reaches in and tugs the crumpled windshield back out onto the hood. Makes a face again, rolls up his sleeves, and reaches back in to unlock the front door. “They’re still fucking breathing, I don’t think I really broke bones, and Scott will pitch a fit if we don’t. Fucking hunters. Just once I’d like them to show up when I really _need_ to get out of a dinner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Scott's defense, Derek does everything with such a stereotypical brooding antihero face that I wouldn't be sure if he wasn't in the middle of a prolonged flashback guilt-trip either.
> 
> If you need to emotionally manipulate anybody, but especially when it comes to dating, Lydia seems like the obvious expert. I'm not sure why she doesn't pop up in that role in more fic; it was kind of her shtick for most of season one.
> 
> Yeah, Heather's the same girl who was the darach's first victim. Alpha!Stiles (and his dad being in the know since the beginning) meant a lot more of his teenage friends lived, although there was still a really high body count in the older generation.
> 
> I think writing romance novels where somebody else deals with all the talking would be a perfect arrangement for Derek. Satisfies his loner side, his suppressed romantic impulses, and his tendency to be really passive-aggressive about working out his grudges. Also, come on, he totally has the face of a certain strain of romance novel covers.


	10. Chapter 10

The two hunters are diagnosed at the scene with concussion, whiplash, broken noses and semi-serious facial lacerations, and after the responding cops read them their rights, are cuffed to stretchers and taken off to the hospital. Peter gives an appropriately shell-shocked interview about these drug-addicted hooligans terrorizing everyday citizens to one of his favorite beat reporters, who then thanks him with the observation that the FBI agents looking into Stiles’ father’s death checked out of their hotel earlier that day.

“Don’t know if they’re going to be able to use that film, I tried to cast an anti-glare spell but I’m not sure you were in range. But that was pretty neat,” Stiles says, as Peter joins him in leaning against their car and waiting for Lydia and Chris to show up. “You practice that voice? You know, the whole ‘I am so very, very deploring the state of the world today, as a mere concerned person’ voice?”

“I did take one public speaking class in law school, but that was years and years ago, so I think I’d just chalk it up to natural talent.” Peter says. He absently tugs at his ripped shirt, feeling a slight chill from the evening breeze, and catches Stiles’ eyes shifting to look. Resettles himself against the car, so his hip and arm are pressing into Stiles, and then tips his head towards the other man. His throat is still a little raw, courtesy of alpha-inflicted injuries, and he purrs as his skin stings, bite-marks stretching. “Well, as a mere bystander to a shocking act of violence, I think we might as well stay at home if this is what we’ll be subjected to when we go out. Agreed?”

Stiles lifts his eyes from Peter’s throat, which he had been regarding with blatant approval. Strangely, the amusement in his eyes seems to decrease the farther they get from there, and by the time he’s straightened up, he looks fully sober.

“Yeah, you could say that.” Then he grabs the back of Peter’s neck, just as Peter’s about to lean over. He holds Peter in place, squeezing lightly but firmly, and then sighs.

Stiles cranes his head around, but just presses his face into the side of Peter’s throat for a second. He’s nowhere near his bites, and the touch, although reassuring, is clearly not flirtatious. If anything, it feels like a cold, wet towel dropped into Peter’s lap.

“So, sorry again,” Stiles says, pulling away. He lets go of Peter and steps away from the car, raising his hand as Chris pulls into the parking lot. “I swear, one of these days we’ll show you a good, murder-free time.”

* * *

Lydia smartly does not suggest Peter step up and lawyer for them—he might work with criminals but he happily left most of criminal law behind after the bar exam—and in fact, reminds him to not provide any more statements, or any other information besides contact info, until they get him signed onto the pack’s criminal defense attorney. She’s even a little annoyed that he went and gave that interview to the reporter, although she agrees that the story he came up with is what they would have went with anyway.

“Still, I’d appreciate it if you at least texted the basics around whenever you do that. You don’t know when one of us might be meeting with a cop who might ask, and the less they have to overlook, the more they’re willing to work with us,” she says crisply, sitting down to her laptop back at the Argent kitchen. She types in her password and then frowns up at him over the laptop lid. “So now, why on earth were you two still in the parking lot anyway? When I said a private place of your choosing—”

“Lydia, believe me, even if I wasn’t a lawyer, having Derek as my nephew would’ve ensured a thorough education in the definition of public versus private venues,” Peter mutters. He pokes around till he finds a highball glass and a bottle of whiskey that’s already been wolfsbaned, as indicated by the bright purple sticker with date and time of dosing. “It…didn’t go quite as planned. The light conversation died out earlier than I was expecting. Mainly because he recognized yours and Erica’s handiwork.”

“Well, clearly he didn’t take offense,” Lydia says, nodding at Peter’s neck.

Peter’s about to pour himself a glass, but she stares so pointedly that he stops and grabs at his neck instead. The bites are still a little sore and he hisses as he accidentally catches one with his claws. Then hisses again, because it feels good, that touch of sting, and it shouldn’t when things have obviously gone awry.

“Yes, and then the hunters showed up. And contrary to everything I’ve seen to date, including, if I’m not mistaken, why Derek and Scott only take up one bathroom after they’ve sparred, Stiles did not seem to appreciate my…appreciation of his prompt and decisive response to them,” he says, sloshing the whiskey into his glass.

“Obviously, if he’s spending the night driving around with Chris when the police are already out in force looking for more gang activity,” Lydia says.

“Actually, I’m not.” Chris tosses a string of charms into a basket of them on the kitchen island, shaking his head in disgust as he walks by Peter. He gets himself another glass and then takes the whiskey bottle before Peter is quite done with it. “Don’t snarl at me, Peter, it’s not because he’d rather screw me. He’s still out patrolling, damn it.”

Peter opens his mouth. Closes it. Then opens it again, because he has to do that for the whiskey to be of any use.

“I need to go manipulate federal agents,” Lydia says after considering them. “Chris?”

“What?” Chris snaps, looking up. Then his shoulders sag. He takes a healthy drink of his whiskey and then sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, fine, I’ll deal with it. You’d just better—where’s Scott?”

“Here, here, and why is Stiles texting me that he might need to camp out in the preserve tonight?” Scott says, walking in while typing furiously on his phone. “They already arrested the hunters, what’s he freaking out over?”

He looks up, just short of hitting the island, and Chris and Lydia both look at Peter, who stubbornly does not flinch, and just enjoys the damned whiskey. Because that’s about all he’s getting to enjoy at the moment.

“Oh,” Scott says, sighing. “Okay. Let’s…okay, let’s sit and talk about this.”

“Do I look like Derek?” Peter says.

“No, and that’s why I said talk,” Scott says, with enough of a subvocal growl to make Peter flinch. For all that he’s generally mild-mannered to hangdog, he is, after all, an alpha, and one who can keep up with Stiles. “If you were Derek, I’d just say let’s go wrestle and then I’d talk to him when he’s too wiped to crawl away from me.”

After a moment, Peter takes the seat at the island that Lydia’s just abandoned. “Touché,” he says, and raises his glass to Scott. “Also, I might as well take this opportunity to say that so far you seem to be avoiding the common mistake of trying to kill Derek. Please continue to do so, and I’ll refrain from becoming more evil than I already am.”

“Ah. Okay. Thanks…I’ll do that, I’d—I don’t think anybody really wants you to turn evil on their behalf,” Scott says uncertainly. He looks at Chris, who silently offers the whiskey. Scott frowns and shakes his head, and then climbs up onto the stool next to Peter. “So. What happened with Stiles?”

“Nothing,” Peter says, downing the rest of his whiskey. Then he contemplates his empty glass. “Well, if you’re all going to stare at my neck like that—”

“I was just smelling, actually, and only because I do have to breathe occasionally,” Chris mutters. He reluctantly tips the bottle Peter’s way, and when Peter slides his glass over, pours a surprisingly generous amount. “So let me guess, the girls helped get you all excited—”

“Him,” Peter says.

Chris rolls his eyes. “No, you, and if you keep interrupting, I’m keeping all the whiskey. So you finally got over whatever bizarre pride issues you’ve got, and you made a move and Stiles was all for it, and then the hunters showed and suddenly he’s giving you the cold shoulder.”

For a moment, for no reason besides pure frustration, Peter wants to lie and say Chris is wrong. That Chris doesn’t know his alpha as well as he thinks, and that Peter’s relationship with Stiles is not like whatever disaster they’re about to talk about, and that his—his fellow beta can just wipe that smug knowing look right off his face.

Except Chris doesn’t look smug so much as deeply, deeply worried, and Peter doesn’t even _have_ a relationship with Stiles. And damn it, but Peter doesn’t understand why he _still_ doesn’t seem to know anything. He’s new, fine, but he is engaged and motivated and he damn well is trying now. That should count—that has to count for something.

“Oh, great, I thought he was getting over it finally,” Scott mutters. He glances at Chris, then glowers a little as Chris offers the whiskey again. “Would you stop that? Like getting drunk helped before.”

“It got him to actually talk about it,” Chris says. 

It takes a second for Peter to realize the man’s referring to Stiles and not to their own little heart-to-heart. He stares into his second drink, wondering when he started feeling ashamed of himself over that sort of assumption, and then shakes his head. “Will someone just tell me what I’m doing wrong? What part of the damned manual I didn’t read, or what have you?”

“It’s not you—really, it’s not. And it’s not in the manual. It’s just…” Heaving a sigh, Scott puts his head into his hands and then massages his temples. He looks too old, far more tired than his years should have him, and from the way Chris looks at him, this isn’t a common occurrence and its current appearance is not a good sign. “Stiles took his father dying really badly. Well, not like his mom wasn’t bad too, but…back then we were still kids, you could kind of get why we didn’t know what we were doing.”

“You did well enough to put my father on the back foot,” Chris offers. He’s a fair bit less grudging with his sympathy than Peter would have expected.

“Yeah, yeah, but Stiles’ dad was a huge part of that. And it wore him out, and Stiles really stepped up because he didn’t want to keep putting it on his dad, he wanted to be the alpha we needed,” Scott says. He pushes his head up enough to look at them over his hands. “And honestly, we thought we were there. We had a good, solid pack, we had a strong reputation with our neighbors. Kate was dead, Gerard was almost dead—sorry, Chris—”

Chris’ lips thin, but he shrugs it off, and doesn’t even twitch a finger towards the alcohol.

“—and then out of nowhere, we’ve got Gerard’s men popping up for one last go. And they get his dad,” Scott goes on. “He stuck it out for a little bit after Gerard died, made sure everything was tidied up, but we could all tell he didn’t want to be here. He kept flinching whenever he saw something that reminded him of his dad.”

“Were you an alpha at that point?” Peter asks.

“Oh, yeah, and you know, I did what I could, but Stiles just…I guess he did need to clear his head. Not that anybody wanted him to go, but he needed it, so…he transferred to Miskatonic University on the East Coast for his last year. And then he did some traveling. He’d come back here every couple months, but he wasn’t really living with us,” Scott says.

“He only really stopped living out of his suitcase a month ago,” Chris throws in. “When he heard about the new FBI inquiry and the freeze on his old house, just before the Alphas showed up. You’ve…he’s been playing it down for you and Derek, but he was sort of edgy about even that much.”

Scott makes a face. “Yeah, I mean, I feel really guilty thinking this, but I was kind of glad that they started up the investigation into his dad’s death again, because at least that was sure to keep him around. And I’m gonna admit when he first called and let me know about you, I thought him making a new beta might help, too. Not that we wanted either of you to get shot and bitten, but…”

“Well, clearly, semi-paternal urges aren’t enough,” Peter mutters. He drinks some whiskey, then wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand. “And I’m afraid that I don’t come equipped with the kind of skill set that Derek does. Pity turning into a werewolf doesn’t magically endow you with the knowledge of how to kill everyone.”

“If it did that, we’d be in a lot more trouble,” Scott says sharply. He doesn’t quite growl but his eyes flash red and he straightens up so his head is slightly above Peter’s.

Peter’s shoulders jerk back, trying to flatten, and then he forces them forward again. And he does growl, because God, but he is fed up. “You can’t keep treating me like a—like an infant with one hand, and then assuming I’m already as blasé as the rest of you,” he snaps. “Yes, Scott, I’m aware you can’t just go around massacring wherever you go. I spent the first thirty-four years of my life operating under that assumption, which is why I never even tried to kill anybody till you all showed up. I’ve got to learn now, I know that, but I didn’t lose my mind when I turned. When I kill someone, I’ll do it right, for a damn good reason, because I don’t plan to risk my life any more than I did before.”

“Sounds about right for you,” Chris snorts, fingering his empty glass.

“Well, if you’d like to be a snide bastard about it,” Peter says. “As for myself, I’d really just like to have more of my time devoted to things like getting to know my alpha, and understanding my new pack, rather than running around with dead bodies.”

“It really should settle down now. I mean, yeah, you got attacked, but the number of hunters in town is down by half already.” Scott’s eased back and is looking at Peter with a mixture of chagrin and surprise, and yes, some approval. “Anyway, Stiles isn’t going to leave while you’re still learning the ropes. It’s just, he really does like you. I think he’s just worried you’re going to get hurt.”

Peter tries not to be too obviously exasperated with his sigh. Because on the one hand, it’s good to have Scott on his side, and honestly, for more reasons than just that it’d be foolish to pick a fight with the other alpha in the pack when he’s already in difficulties with his own. But on the other…well, Scott and Derek should suit each other very well, what with the one always stating the obvious and the other always needing to have that pointed out to him.

“Look, Peter, just stop with the scheming, all right?” Chris says abruptly. Then holds up his hand. “And I’m not baiting you. Because honestly, that usually _would_ be how to get Stiles’ attention, but not when he’s like this. Trust me, I know.”

“And I suppose here’s where you share your hard-earned wisdom out of the kindness of your heart,” Peter mutters, draining the rest of his whiskey.

“No, I’m doing it because goddamn it, if he lets his guilt run him out of town again, neither of us are getting fucked anytime soon,” Chris says. A flicker of amusement goes through his eyes as Scott chokes and coughs, staring wide-eyed at him. “You need to step out and preserve my daughter’s innocence, Scott, feel free.”

Scott coughs into his fist one last time, then presses that down on the counter and leans back from it. His eyes narrow at Chris. “I kind of thought we’d figured out she always knows way, way more than me,” he says, with surprising but commendable calmness.

Chris’ face tightens. He lifts his hand, then puts it firmly down and turns to Peter. “Look. Peter. I figured out I wanted to start something with him somewhere around the seventh or eighth time he saved Allison and me from Gerard’s men. I was already his beta, I knew he liked me, but nothing happened. You know why?”

“Well, if I had to hazard a guess—your father was responsible for the deaths of his parents?” Peter says.

Scott sucks in his breath and shifts nervously—he is very easily alarmed, for an alpha—but Chris just leans forward, grinning to show his teeth. “Yeah, that. He got over that. Then it was that Gerard was still screwing around with his pack, and he got over that. And then it was Scott and Allison’s relationship problems, and not messing up pack dynamics any more than they were.”

“Which are all valid issues to raise,” Peter observes.

“Which we got over, because we’re a pack, and that’s the sort of thing you need to work out anyway if we’re going to function right,” Chris says sharply. “Pack means everybody, not just some superman alpha going out there on his own. Stiles is a lot better about that than some people—”

Scott opens his mouth, pauses, and then closes it and just rubs at his hair.

“—but he forgets once in a while, because he’s _had_ to be like that too often. So my point, Peter, is act like goddamn pack, not like some jackass who’s still trying to score points.” Chris drops back and pours himself another whiskey, but instead of drinking it, he jabs both the glass and the bottle at Peter as if he’s double-fisting pistols, like some Old West gunfighter. “And for the record, we finally got in bed because I just dropped on my knees and sucked him off the next time he saved me. You should also remember he’s not that far off teenage hormones.”

“…I thought you said there was fairy dust,” Scott says, looking faintly wounded. “Allison was worried! She didn’t know whether we needed to figure out how to detox you or something.”

“There was, it just wasn’t us it got on, but we kind of needed to get a room fast anyway and it was as good a reason as any to give you,” Chris says, so unrepentant that Peter has to admire it. “She was way too young to be seeing any of that.”

“She’s actually older than us,” Scott mutters. He shoots Chris a look that makes Chris drop his head, although the man’s still glaring at Scott, and then he gives himself a shake. “Okay. Well, anyway, so you’re still going to try with Stiles?”

“Of course,” Peter says, irritated. “I’m disappointed, Scott, I’m not—I’m in this for good, all right? I thought that should be obvious by now, what with my letting Erica and Lydia into my _bedroom_.”

“Yeah. Good point,” Scott says. He blinks, then shakes himself again. “Well, good, because I really, really try to not kill people, but Stiles is kind of a non-negotiable for me. I might be one now too, but honestly, he’s still my alpha. Got it?”

He looks up at Peter, and his voice and posture are calm but his eyes are a cool, flat red that’s somehow more chilling than a full-shift alpha lunging across the yard. Peter has to work for a second before he can stop the instinctive whimper, and just nod instead.

“Great!” Scott chirps, suddenly relaxing back to earnest. “So how do we get him back here so we can talk some sense into him?”

“Tell him that I’m so depressed over his rejection that I’m rethinking this entire werewolf business, with extreme prejudice?” Peter says after a moment’s thought.

Scott pauses, frozen in his eager-to-please inquiring face. Then he sags back, looking at Peter with a kind of horrified, yet very accustomed to this, scowl. “Don’t…don’t you think that’s a little…that’s going to be a little rough on him?” he says.

“Done,” Chris says, holding up his phone. Then, while Scott’s sputtering, he picks up his and Peter’s glasses and the whiskey bottle. He takes the bottle with him as he moves out of the kitchen. “And you can stay if you want, Scott, but I think I’m going to go find Derek, and work on burying the hatchet with him out of hearing range.”

“He’s more of a tequila man,” Peter says. “So that Mexican place on Fremont and Third—”

Chris raises the bottle in acknowledgement, and continues walking without looking back or stopping. They might actually get along, eventually, Peter thinks. And then he takes a deep breath, and prepares himself for a long wait.

* * *

Scott’s nattering gets a little much, and since he’s not bringing his alpha status into it, Peter excuses himself to the back patio until Stiles arrives. Which happens with the snap of a twig that makes Peter nearly start off the lawn chair, and then a low, rather tight laugh as Stiles removes his masking charms.

“I kind of figured that the whole extreme prejudice thing was exaggerating it, but kudos for getting Chris to be dramatic. Usually that takes a life-threatening injury to Allison,” he says, coming around the corner.

For a moment Peter simply has to dig his claws into the chair and hold on. Then he gets his chin down, and breathes in his own scent, and he manages to recover enough for speech. “I apologize for the unnecessary theatrics, but—”

“You wanted to talk and I kind of ditched you, yeah. I know.” Stiles stops a little short of the patio. 

For all that he uses the trappings of the social outcast—clothing, haircut, cultural references—he carries himself with such confidence that in retrospect, Peter’s an idiot for not picking up on something being _different_ before this. Perhaps not werewolves, but just the mismatch should have been a clue. But right now Stiles has his hands stuffed into his pockets, his head slightly lowered, his eyes wary where they aren’t masked with sarcasm, and Chris is right. He is still quite young. And for all his losses, not numbed, not yet.

Peter hopes, with a fierceness that doesn’t quite surprise him now, that that last part never changes. And will, if he can, do something towards that.

But that’s later. For now, Peter spreads his feet and pulls his hands back from the edge of the chair, so they’re completely visible, and simply tries to not look threatening. “I wanted to get to know you, and ideally, start making a place for myself in your life,” he says slowly, watching every part of Stiles’ face. “But you know how that works better than I do. I’m only just starting to learn, and however enthusiastic I might be—and I _am_ , and can only apologize for my earlier—my earlier hysterics. Anyway. I know I don’t have any real idea of what I’ll have to do now, and that you do. But I wanted to tell you about Derek.”

Stiles stares at him for a few seconds. Starts to say something, coughs over it, and then raises his hand sharply, only to rub it over his rising brows. “Derek. You want to talk about Derek.”

“Yes, well, we haven’t been completely honest with you, and we should, if we’re to be good pack members,” Peter sighs. “So, my nephew. As insulting as he can be, he’s always been attached to me, I suppose because I was home more than his actual father. It started when he was a child and he’s not changed much over the years. I found it extremely annoying when I was younger, and then amusing. And then I…well, honestly, I found it to be…a possibility.”

“You mean you pushed him around?” Stiles says. He’s not exactly accusing; the knowing look in his eyes isn’t judgment so much as a complete lack of surprise, and that is…more discomforting to Peter than judgment would’ve been, actually. “Manipulated him? Made him your little Derek puppet?”

Peter grimaces. “More or less. He’s not spineless but he _is_ terrible at judging people. Anyway. It was…not harmless, I’m not that much of a hypocrite, but my sister is not a complete fool and while we fought about it, she never banned me from the house. I think she thought that Derek would learn and grow out of it, and be stronger. And in the meantime, like I said, her husband wasn’t around much and he didn’t have many friends. She wanted him to have some sort of male influence, and there weren’t many options.”

Which had been a constant refrain to those fights, and towards the end, something Peter had gleefully thrown back into his sister’s face. He and Talia have had a rocky relationship over the years, not all of it down to him, but he has to admit now that she’s been much more patient about him than vice versa.

He wonders for a moment whether that’ll extend to werewolves, and then quickly pushes that thought away, because he’s not a needless masochist. One emotional minefield at a time.

“Well, and then Derek met Kate,” Peter says after a pause. “I knew he was seeing a girl, and I knew she was older. I didn’t know who—I wasn’t spending so much time with them then, I was busy trying to get ahead at my firm, and so was less interested in prodding at my family. But Derek was…he really did think he was in love. But at the same time, I think—well, you’ve met her, Kate was not exactly a great actor—”

“Psycho showing all over the place, yeah,” Stiles says. Still listening, without any discernable conclusions crossing his face.

“I think he knew something was wrong, but he got it mixed up with his own feelings, and just chalked it up to some—star-crossed lovers nonsense,” Peter says. “Anyway, he asked me for advice about what to do, and I was in the middle of a very—I didn’t pay a lot of attention. I said something to the effect of, if she was really worth it, he’d invite her over for dinner with the family.”

Stiles hisses. He actually takes a step forward, and then jerks half-back when Peter stiffens. “So…she was kind of known for getting invited in and then killing everybody,” he explains.

Peter had not known that, and…he almost wishes he hadn’t; his family had suffered too much, but he’s only now starting to see that they could’ve been much, much worse off. He shivers, then rubs his hands hard over his thighs, trying to steady himself. 

“Dinner never happened,” he says. “After he left, I got curious in spite of myself. I followed him, recognized her, and promptly went to Ta—to his mother. I—I was angry. I knew exactly what she was doing, the moment I saw her, and I was angry because she’d managed to get under _my_ nose. I wasn’t working on my sister’s dispute with Gerard, because—well, she thought I was too junior, and hired a different lawyer—but it was still my family, my case as much as theirs. And then I was angry because they didn’t just roll up under the scandal, they positively thrived on it. And _then_ I was angry because…because honestly, I really had no idea the media would take it the way they did. I’m not shy—”

“No,” Stiles says, amused, but also warm.

“—but that sort of attention, even I’d rather not have.” Peter can’t help a bark of disgusted laughter, remembering some of the questions that’d been shouted at them. “As if Derek was being _ungrateful_ for seeking criminal charges, as if we all were, just because that bitch happened to be attractive.”

Stiles shrugs. “Yeah, well…I got nothing, sorry. Except that regular people are pretty supernaturally stupid sometimes.”

“Well, I’m proof of that, anyway,” Peter mutters. He catches the look on Stiles’ face and almost changes his mind, and then just grips his knees and gets it over with. “If I could do it again, I’d still go after them, but I—what I regret is how I did it. I said I was angry, like it was just my injury. I didn’t see until far later what it did to the rest of the family, and by then they were all angry with me, too. There’s a reason why it’s only Derek and myself who still live here. And frankly, I don’t know why Derek hasn’t left, except that he’s still an idiot about who he gets attached to.”

“He seems to have this thing about people who try to protect him, even when he doesn’t want it,” Stiles says after a second. He steps onto the patio, then crosses the tiles—no magical eyes today, Peter idly notes—and comes up to within a few feet of Peter. “Even that serial killer ex of his, I looked her up. She kept him out of her stuff, actually. Not that that makes it much better, but…hey, at least he wasn’t framed for murder?”

Peter hates to contradict the other man, but he did live through that. He dealt with those damn detectives, and their insistence on profiling based, in his opinion, solely on Hollywood casting, and so he can’t help but roll his eyes. “By the skin of his teeth, considering his prior record. Anyway, even if he’s somehow gotten over it, _I_ haven’t. I’m not—Stiles, I don’t usually care about protecting people. It’s not in my nature. And then the one time I tried, I was so terrible at it—the thing is, I _want_ to make this work. I want to be pack, I want to be your beta, I want so, so badly to not make you be ashamed of me.”

He’s not rolling his eyes during that, of course. Although Peter is having a hard time keeping his eyes up and on Stiles, and perversely, he almost feels as if rolling his eyes might make saying this all much easier. But it wouldn’t give the right impression, and damn it, that matters. All of this matters. He took long enough to realize it and he can’t waste time now, not now.

“I want to learn, I want you to teach me. I want to say that I won’t get hurt, that I won’t fail, but—well, I’ll say that I’ll get up again, and I will want to do that. I’ll want to keep trying,” he says. Stiles makes a slight movement and Peter, afraid he’s losing the man, is off the chair and down on his knees in front of Stiles before he quite realizes. His chin goes up and he almost loses sight of Stiles’ face before he catches himself.

It’s not a play, and it’s not entirely instinct either. Instinct might be guiding him, but he thinks, for the first time since he was bitten, he truly does _feel_ what he’s laying down at Stiles’ feet. He understands why he’s doing it, and he wants to do it. God, he wants to.

“I want you as my alpha,” he says, reaching up towards Stiles’ hands. “I want _you_. And please, I don’t—I might not know, I might be completely useless right now, but I’ll learn. Whatever it is, I’ll—”

Stiles is still and silent and so solemn he’s cold, like a statue. And then his nostrils flare and his eyes snap red, and, in that one second before he reaches down and grabs Peter, he’s pure flame.

“Oh, Jesus fucking _Christ_ ,” he snarls, just before he shoves them over.

They tumble back into the chair, and then that skitters out of the way as Stiles climbs onto Peter, fierce and pressing and all over, his hands wrenching Peter’s limbs into place, his breath scorching a trail up Peter’s front. Peter arches, twists, is writhing like his blood’s been replaced with pure electricity before he can even so much as finish his breath. By the time Stiles makes it up for a ferocious, crushing kiss, Peter’s already been reduced to gutshot whimpers.

“Oh, my God, my fucking God, you are so—oh, fuck, fuck.” Stiles grabs Peter’s wrists and pins them over Peter’s head, rocking all his weight onto them as he sucks the breath out Peter’s mouth. He bites at Peter’s lower lip, then shoves his head between Peter’s head and arm. Laves roughly at his earlier bites, still stinging, drawing them back to full aching heat, and then he laughs.

He laughs, and kisses Peter half-senseless. His mouth works along Peter’s jaw, both sides, and then latches onto the underside of Peter’s chin, dragging the tender flesh there into a bruised swell as he switches to one hand over Peter’s wrists, moves the other one down to haul up Peter’s thigh as Peter desperately tries to get it pressed up against the other man, get as much contact as possible.

“Fuck, _fuck_ , so—so perfect, holy shit, _yes_ , I’m gonna show you, I’m gonna show you so much, Peter, you’re going to go insane,” Stiles promises, sweet and hot and fevered, scraping his teeth against Peter’s Adam’s apple so Peter whines, goes as flat as he can and still that isn’t enough.

Isn’t enough to show his alpha, isn’t enough to satisfy the clawing, frantic urge to just—just give. Peter’s knees fall open, just as he’s gotten them around Stiles’ waist. He tugs at his arms too, trying to free them so his back isn’t arched up, so he can lay himself out under the other man, but Stiles won’t let go. Stiles sucks down the front of his throat, rumbling in time with Peter’s jagged moans, kneading Peter’s hip with his free hand.

Then he grabs Peter’s thigh again, and he hauls it away from Peter’s body so roughly that Peter thinks he hears muscles rip. But it’s not them, it’s his jeans, shredding under Stiles’ claws, and—and he should twist away, he should, but he pushes his leg into it so Stiles has to move his hand. He doesn’t really want to be ripped up, literally torn to pieces, but he thinks of blood and red lines down his leg, marks that _will_ last, because it’s an alpha giving them to him, and he shudders, Stiles’ face blurring into a hot haze over him.

“Shh, no, it’s okay,” Stiles coos at him. Kissing him again, but quick, frustratingly light little nips, little pecks all along his mouth as he whines and twists after them, begging for it. “No, no, I’m gonna do you right. You’re so good, you’re good, you’re gonna be such a good beta, Peter, I’m gonna make you—”

“Please, please,” Peter manages, breaking through the whimpers. “Fuck, please, now, don’t—if you stop again I can’t—”

“Oh, hell no,” Stiles laughs, and finally gives him the kind of kiss he wants. Deep, claiming, draped over him with that hand teasing into his ripped jeans, fingertips worming under the denim to graze up towards his groin. “Yeah, no, not stopping. Will fucking kill anybody who interrupts, I swear. Fuck, might just kill them anyway, I should’ve so fucking done this earlier—”

His fingers curl and Peter feels the curve of his claws, cool and hard in comparison, and as Peter stiffens Stiles drops down and traps one of Peter’s nipples with his mouth. Tears Peter’s jeans out of the way at the same time, while he’s toying with that nipple, working it through Peter’s shirt, fabric just dampening the press of his teeth enough so that Peter cries out in pleasure instead of alarm. Stiles purrs at him, nuzzling his breastbone, and then moves to the other nipple, sucking it hard as he paws at Peter’s thighs.

“Goddamn it, you were so goddamn—so fucking pretty, Peter, so pretty and so ridiculous, such a prissy little new-turned,” Stiles murmurs. “God, I wanted to fucking bite you all over again, every time you scented me.”

He ignores Peter’s cock, and werewolves are, damnably, not flexible enough to bend so Stiles can’t do that. His hand skirts Peter’s groin, then grasps firmly at Peter’s balls, massaging them with a thumb as Stiles lightly pinches a nipple between his teeth. Peter jerks. Tries to stop himself as that stretches his nipple away from Stiles’ mouth, and only ends up shivering harder. His chest feels like somebody’s pushed a star-shaped brand down, centered right on the nipple, snaking lines of ache and fire radiating out from there. And then Stiles lets go with the teeth, closes soft, gentle lips over it instead and Peter slumps down, moaning breathlessly.

Only to twist sharply as Stiles’ fingers slide firmly up behind his balls and brush purposefully over his hole. Peter blinks hard, seeing the night sky come back into focus, and then bucks again as a fingertip pushes right over his hole, its pad starting to sink into him.

Stiles, mouth still wrapped around Peter’s nipple, makes a half-hearted noise of some kind. It’s not reprimanding and so Peter doesn’t stop trying what he’s doing, which is trying to get his stomach bowed enough to rub his cock along Stiles’ thigh. Except Stiles tickles his hole again and Peter wrenches his hips so hard that he actually manages to knock Stiles’ grip off his wrists.

A second later he’s pinned again, even as he’s whining in apology. Stiles pushes over him, both hands on Peter’s wrists. “Huh?” he says.

It takes a few tries for Peter to remember he can use words and not just frantic offerings of his throat. “I—sorry—I just—it’s—”

Somehow, despite being flushed and sweaty and just as hot about this as Peter is, Stiles has enough control to raise his brows. “Been a while? I’m just teasing a little right now, I mean, not gonna go in dry.”

Peter feels an extra flush go over his face. “No, I mean, I—don’t—” he grits out.

He can tell when Stiles gets it from the spike in the smell of his arousal, which is already thick enough to make Peter’s head swim. “Oh…oh, _shit_. Not that—that totally fits you, you _are_ a toppy little shit, aren’t you? Well, there’s other stuff to do if you don’t feel like—”

“ _Stiles_ ,” Peter hisses, sensing the man’s weight shift, move away and no. No. And suddenly he has words. So many words he’s almost drowning in them, and he throws them out of himself as fast as he can, regardless of the slurring and stumbling. “Stiles, no, please, I want, I want you to fuck me, please, I thought, I thought about it, I didn’t before because no one ever mattered but God, please, I want your cock, I want it, I want what you said, fuck me and never get out, just, just stay, stay in me and please, please, _please_ —”

He only stops because Stiles’ tongue is in his mouth. Stiles shifts to straddle Peter, arms and legs holding Peter in and down, hands peeling up Peter’s shirt so his fingers can mold and shape about every single one of Peter’s muscles, belly up, till they’re all trembling to his will. And then he pulls his head back, and he stares at Peter, red lips around his wet black hole of a mouth, under his hot black holes of eyes that Peter can’t stop falling into, over and over again.

“I am making this _so_ good for you,” Stiles says, and then he turns his head. “Hey, assholes, lube _now_ or every single one of you’s on crematory cleaning duty—”

A small shower of things hit the patio near them. Peter doesn’t really pay attention, because Stiles has already turned back and is raking his shirt up over his head. Then leaves it stretched across his face, so he has to force up shaking hands and wrench the rest of the way free himself.

He’s barely got it over when he falls back, twisting and groaning, Stiles’ mouth around his nipple again. Stiles chuckles against it, hands clutching Peter’s thighs, scratching off what’s left of Peter’s jeans. “Remember what I said about these?”

“Yes, yes, suck them, till I can’t stand it, till I’m begging you to stop,” Peter mumbles. He barely has any idea what he’s saying now, the words are just dripping out of him like the sweat off his face. “Till they’re sore, till they’re— _Stiles_.”

Who just ignores him, as promised. Except to clamp Peter’s wrists together into his hand again. He pins them to Peter’s belly this time, grinding them whenever Peter moves too much. His mouth works and nurses Peter’s nipples, swapping them randomly, till Peter’s too exhausted to talk, to even moan. Peter just whines, shaking, and then Stiles bites one and Peter arches and _God_ , he has something inside of himself. Crooked and long and when his ass clenches it’s pushing his prostate right into that something and Peter can’t.

He comes. Whining the whole time, as his body seems to revolt against him and it feels like the best thing in his entire life. And then whining after, whining and pleading and Stiles has to climb up and shush him with kisses, rubbing a palm over one raw nipple as that finger keeps crooking within Peter.

“Hey, hey, yeah, don’t worry about it, first time after turning’s intense,” Stiles says, nipping comfortingly at Peter’s throat. His finger seems to double in width and as Peter hisses, tightening down, Stiles makes a sharp, low sound, not quite angry but clearly demanding, and Peter goes slack and then Stiles kisses him as a reward. “Kinda like puberty again. But trust me, I’m still gonna fuck you. And you’re gonna go again, hah, Peter, say hello to were stamina, it’s _amazing_.”

He lifts off, but squeezes Peter’s thigh as he goes, letting Peter know it’s just temporary. Then uses that hold to turn Peter over onto his side, dipping under Peter’s quivering leg and then coming up behind. His fingers corkscrew with the move and Peter shakes viciously, a fresh set of lightning streaking through him. Peter’s cock isn’t even all the way soft and he can already feel the blood rushing back into it.

Stiles wraps up against Peter’s back, naked too, mouth to Peter’s nape, talking Peter through it. How good his ass feels, how good he looks arching up, how good he must feel, rocking on three fingers, with a thumb out and rubbing relentlessly over his perineum, so it feels like Stiles has him caught between two rocks, pinched ruthlessly tight and yes, it is so, so good.

Peter claws mindlessly at the patio. He breaks tiles and he feels the shards cut up his hands, but it’s just quick flickers of pain, a spark and then warm, sticky blood over his fingers. It should be disgusting, or terrifying, but instead it just raises the heat, makes the air smell as sharp and stretched as Peter feels. He only stops when Stiles slings an arm over him, pulls his wrists in, locks them back to his belly.

“Grab your cock,” Stiles tells him, and he does. “No, just the bottom, and your other hand, cup your balls.”

So Peter does that, fixes his hands, and Stiles purrs at him, bites the point of his shoulder so he rolls from there down and then he’s speared back on something thicker and longer than fingers, something that’s hot enough to warm him from inside out. Peter shudders mindlessly, beyond whines now. He makes ragged pieces of sounds, not even whole ones, because every time he starts, Stiles moves in him and he can’t hold his breath together.

Stiles stops talking to him, starts snarling instead. Burying his face in Peter’s back, in Peter’s neck, gripping at Peter’s hips now as he pushes them over so Peter’s on his belly. He didn’t tell Peter to take his hands off so Peter tries to keep them in place, but Stiles drags him back too, drags them off the tile and onto the softer grass, and Peter’s hands get pulled away. They end up claw-down in the turf, clinging as Peter mewls and sobs, his alpha still moving above him, in him. His cock gets dragged over the grass so he can feel it getting raw, getting chafed, but he can’t free his hand to reach it.

Then Peter’s wrenched up, head pressed into the ground, hips raised as Stiles hooks his arm under Peter, tight across Peter’s belly. Peter’s cock slaps up against the underside of that arm and then Peter falls apart again, come whipping up against his own skin. He feels Stiles come a second or so later, shaking against his back, and then they fall onto the grass again. On their sides, Stiles pulling him up close so not an inch of his alpha slides out of him.

“Hey,” Stiles says, what seems like ages later. “Peter. Hey. Peter?”

He shifts around Peter, in Peter, and a whine drags out of Peter’s slack mouth.

“Good, huh,” Stiles says, nuzzling at Peter’s nape. He stops and rests his face against the back of Peter’s throat, just breathing, and then he lifts his head again. “So…we kind of fucked in the grass, and we’re pretty filthy, and also, we ruined your clothes again.”

Peter realizes, dimly, that his alpha’s addressing him, and that he should probably respond. He flexes his thighs, trying to think, and his ass clutches at Stiles’ cock and it’s soft in him, but still warm. God, warm, Stiles is all warmth, and Peter flexes his legs again. It hurts. All his muscles hurt, stinging and sparking as they slowly come to life, and he makes little noises at that, shifting more, so the hurt starts to blend together and turn back to heat and then—

“Oh, okay,” Stiles says, tightening his arms around Peter’s waist and chest. “You’re gonna be _that_ kind of beta, are you?”

—his arm brushes Peter’s nipple, setting off a cascade of terrible, sweet aches that sets Peter to shivering. Stiles nips his nape and Peter rasps a broken whimper, then discovers it’s far easier to make soft, short, throat-caught begging noises.

“Fuck,” Stiles says, as his cock starts to stir inside Peter. “Yeah, totally that kind. But first we should go—oh, whatever, we’re already dirty anyway.”

And he rolls Peter back onto his belly, so they can fuck again.

* * *

Peter swims slowly to wakefulness. He’s in bed. He smells like soap and Stiles, and he can feel Stiles’ heartbeat briefly speed up as the other man shifts behind him, getting comfortable. And hear his own heartbeat follow, till they’re matched again.

He’s a werewolf. He just got fucked out of his mind last night, outdoors, in front of most of the pack, and now that he’s awake, he can feel it all over himself. His body feels unstrung even though he’s completely relaxed in Stiles’ hold, all his muscles like limp, aching pieces of wet cloth. His ass—God, his ass, it feels like somebody’s permanently wrenched it a few inches more open, and all he can think about is how much he wishes it had Stiles’ cock in it. And his neck is absolutely stinging with bites. If anybody had any doubt about whose beta Peter is, well, even a human should be able to put the pieces together.

And it all feels completely right. Peter feels safer and more at peace, more _in_ his own skin, lying here than he thinks he ever has. He’s spent so much of his life proving the adage that a moving target is harder to hit, but the last thing he feels like now is a target. If anything, he feels like he’s the arrow, or the bullet, and he’s finally hit…

“Hmm?” Stiles says.

He doesn’t even really feel disturbed that Stiles can already read him that way. He’s just content, except for that little bit of curiosity that’s just been riffling through what the manual had said. “Stiles, are you my anchor?” Peter murmurs.

“Oh,” Stiles says, much more aware. He moves his arms back, and then laughs and returns them when Peter makes a protesting noise. “Yeah, so that’s pretty common with new-bittens. And okay, we kind of encourage it, because it speeds up getting control over your new senses. Don’t worry, you can switch to something else later.”

Peter frowns. “What if I don’t want to?”

Stiles pauses, and then pushes his face softly against Peter’s nape, careful of the smarting spots. “Well, you can do that too,” he says.

He purrs, and Peter finds his eyes closing again as he purrs back. And—then there’s a third heartbeat, jarringly not in sync, and as Peter opens his eyes he registers Chris’ scent, a second before the man steps into the room.

“Goddamn tequila,” Chris mutters. He looks fine, except for a slight squint to one eye. He stalks over to the bed and drops a small bundle, and then stalks around the bed to do something. “So here, pack says happy morning after.”

Peter looks at the bundle. It’s in a Ziploc bag but the angle doesn’t let him see all the contents, and Peter doesn’t really want to move. But he wants to know what’s in the bag.

“It’s just concealer, lidocaine cream, shit like that,” Stiles tells him. While unwrapping one arm from Peter in order to snag the bag and drag it up within view. Then Stiles laughs, kissing Peter’s neck, and puts his arm back so Peter stops whining. “But do you really want to get up yet?”

“No,” Peter says. He closes his eyes…and remembers something. And sighs and opens them, just as a bare-chested Chris flops down next to him.

Stiles takes his yelp and startled backwards push with a snort, and then uses the opportunity to drape more tightly over Peter. “Don’t scare the baby, Chris,” Stiles mumbles.

“Go to hell, alpha,” Chris mutters, face down in the bed. He breathes slowly. “Also, Derek’s alive, Peter, so stop staring. I dropped him off with Scott and Allison and I do _not_ want to think about what my daughter is doing right now, all right?”

“Are you—hungover?” Peter asks incredulously. He can see that the skin’s pulled taut over Chris’ temple, and then looks down to see the man’s hands in fists against his hips.

And…well, there is an enormous amount of bare skin in between those two places. And he’s never seen Chris naked before. And Chris is…very nicely muscled…well, he’s a werewolf, he should be, but Peter can’t help flipping back through his memories and wondering if that came with the bite or was a pre-existing condition.

“’s okay, I know, he’s hot,” Stiles says, absently nuzzling Peter’s hairline. “And yeah, we can get hangovers. Though even with tincture, it takes a lot and what did you and Derek do, drink the whole bar?”

Getting rid of this embarrassing new tendency to blush is next on the list of werewolf adjustments, Peter decides. “He does tend to do that.”

Chris jerks his head around, obviously irritated, and then stops once he gets a look at Peter. He frowns and Peter hates himself, because of all things, Chris has to look _confused_ , and that’s exactly what he doesn’t need when he’s trying to summon up the willpower to stop blushing, a new question to distract him.

And then—Chris tilts his head slightly into the bed. Looks Peter over, gaze lingering on Peter’s marked-up neck, and for a wild moment Peter seriously thinks about grabbing the bag and yanking out that concealer.

“You look a lot better like that than I was figuring,” Chris finally says, a speculative light entering his eyes. And a bit of a malicious one, as he watches Peter flinch back into Stiles again. He looks Peter over a second time, then grimaces and pushes his face back into the bed. “Fuck. No, ‘m way too fucked over by your nephew.”

“Also, I said be nice,” Stiles says. He’s got the slightest bit of warning growl in his voice, and as Chris’ shoulders shiver, he presses a possessive hand over Peter’s belly. Then snorts again, and nuzzles behind Peter’s ear. “No pressure on the group sex. But just so you know, if you are thinking about it, I think it’d be awesome. Just, maybe we wait on that one till you get the hang of this first.”

“I…yes, I think that might need to wait, for…for proper consideration,” Peter says. He’s aware that he sounds a little high-pitched, and also, a little interested, even though his body is firmly telling him it’s not going to happen right now. And that Stiles senses all of that, and is trying to get him to purr again, with those nuzzles. “Besides, what happened to not jumping into it? Chris?”

“Not the same as saying I’m giving up my bed, and please shut up before my head explodes,” Chris mumbles, just as Stiles starts nipping pointedly at the top of Peter’s shoulder.

Peter shuts his mouth and puts his head down, turning it so Stiles has better access. And then fine, starts purring.

Grunting, Chris flops over with his back to them—though he’s also a few inches closer, enough that Peter can feel his body heat now. Stiles licks gently at the bites of Peter’s neck, purring as well, and, with a grudging sigh, Chris finally joins in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Miskatonic University is from the Cthulhu Mythos, and is based somewhere in Massachusetts.
> 
> Other people have raised this before, but I also think if Scott had a different alpha, and had had some agency in making the choice to get the bite, he'd have a totally different attitude towards alphas.
> 
> As awesome as I think that Alpha!Stiles would be, I also think that after a couple years of it plus the usual nutbag life in Beacon Hills, Chris would just be completely done with everything. And more than a little bit of an asshole about it. Which has kind of grown on me over the course of this story.
> 
> So, the whole alpha-inflicted wounds take longer to heal thing. So betas are the ones who walk around with hickeys and funny limps, yes?


	11. Epilogue

“No, that’s just a plain spiral. Triskelion’s this…secret meeting sign thing werewolves used to use,” Derek mumbles. He turns his head and spits out some grass, and then goes limp again. “It’s from this book Allison showed me.”

“So when you told your mother your new tattoo _wasn’t_ a gang sign, you were lying,” Peter says. 

There’s a pebble digging at him somewhere near the lower left part of his belly. He tries to get rid of it, first by humping on it and hoping it’ll just sink further into the ground, and then, when that gets him an objecting grunt and sharp teeth in his already-stinging nape, by squirming a hand under himself and pushing at it.

Derek scowls into the back lawn of Stiles’ old house, which has finally been released to Stiles after some very tough, highly creative negotiating on Peter’s part—the heartbeat lie detector myth _is_ a myth, there are far too many reasons why someone’s heart rate would alter, but stress detection is an art Peter is happily mastering—and then flaps his hand out. He appears to be petting the ground, except then he flicks some grass in Peter’s direction. “It’s your fault she found out. You’re the one who had to tell her I got a tattoo in the first place.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to explain you were limping around because _someone_ decided they wanted to get screwed on a gravel path an hour before we were picking your mother and Laura up for dinner, and werewolf healing isn’t instant when you’ve got actual foreign bodies in your skin,” Peter mutters. He’s nipped again, for some reason, and when he lets out a protesting whine, the mouth on his neck seals over a bite and sucks hotly.

Peter whines again, far less protesting and far more eager, for all that he’s still feeling the bark of various trees in the preserve raking over his own back. Full moon frenzy isn’t quite like the myths have it—for one, it doesn’t last out the entire night. Just long enough for him to not notice he’s apparently disabled his legs, and thus can’t resist as he’s rolled over onto his belly, hands pulled out from under him, buttocks wedged aside as Stiles sinks an improbably hard cock back into him.

“Are you fucking _again_?” Derek grunts. “Do you have to do that in front of me?”

“Scott, for God’s sake, can you just—oh, thanks, Allison,” Stiles says, as Allison throws her thigh over Derek’s face. “Jesus, Derek, stop bitching, it’s not like Peter complains when your alpha insists on ‘counseling’ you in the backseat of everybody’s car.”

Derek lets out a muffled grunt, then does something that makes Allison’s eyes glow and her fangs drop, and also, thankfully, causes her to snap her body tightly around his head in a neat discretion screen. 

“Hey, we descented after,” Derek says, over Scott’s embarrassed noises. His hand goes out and gropes around till it finds Scott’s knee, and then Scott disappears under him and Allison. When Derek raises his head back into view, somebody’s hand hastily wiping off his mouth. “And look, Peter, before you get all passed out again—I’m just saying. Can I just deal with Mom by myself, for once? I mean—I get you were trying to help, but you don’t have to come up with all of my excuses.”

Peter doesn’t really hate his nephew. Truly. These days, what with the much-improved attitude and more targeted use of intimidation tactics, he almost enjoys having Derek around. Right up till the idiot drags him out of enjoying a very slow, very aching, _very_ pleasurable fuck. “Well, lovely as it’d be—if you finally took more initiative—alpha, _alpha_ , oh—shared concerns—”

“I don’t mean the werewolf thing, I know, I know, no outing without everybody agreeing,” Derek says, just as a hand flops over his shoulder. He dips his head and it slides up onto his neck, thumb rubbing in circles, and since he starts purring, that has to be Scott’s hand. “I just meant stuff like the tattoo. I actually had a story about it I was going to tell them, which you screwed up.”

“Mmm,” Peter says, half-ignoring him. Although damn it, family. “Fine, all right, next tattoo or piercing or whatever bonding ritual, you can come up with the alibi.”

“Thanks,” Derek says, with genuine sincerity.

As, when Peter drags his head over to see, the other man slides back behind Allison, with Scott’s tousle of hair bobbing up around the vicinity of Derek’s nape. Peter gratefully flops back into the grass, neck stretching out under Stiles’ mouth, hips firmly pinned under the other man.

“I was gonna tell Laura it was for finishing therapy, like a reminder to think about the consequences of my actions and all that, and she was gonna tell Mom,” Derek adds, for some inexplicable reason. “She’s getting one next week for surviving pharmacy school. So we could tell her together, and Mom would have to choose which of us to freak out at.”

“What, she can’t be mad at both of you at the same time?” somebody from the Erica-Isaac-Boyd pile, which till now has been happily out of the conversation, says. “Is your mom like a robot or something?”

Derek snarls. At less than half-strength, and then he drops back onto Allison, grinning and nosing below belly-level, when she snarls too.

“Do you guys have to hash this stuff out now, anyway?” Jackson grumbles from where he and Lydia—who does not fuck on grass, but who does invest in extremely fluffy-looking picnic blankets—are curled up around each other. “Who wants to know what the hell you’re telling your mom anyway?”

Scott barks sharply, and even from here, with Stiles’ hand possessively wrapped around his balls, Peter notes the way Lydia rolls her eyes, just before stuffing Jackson’s head back between her legs.

“Me!” Erica says. “I love plotting! And I totally get it, right, Laura lives there, she’s closer, your mom can yell at her in person or call you up, and dialing is just so _hard_. I approve.”

“Well, thanks, now that I can’t try it,” Derek says, though he’s not even trying to scowl in Peter’s direction. He’s purring even before Scott slides a hand up Derek’s back, over said tattoo, and into Derek’s hair.

“Wasn’t a bad idea,” Peter allows, and he just registers Derek’s surprised glance and then slow nod, just as Stiles does something with his thumb across the back of Peter’s scrotum, and his mouth on Peter’s neck, that completely makes Peter forget what they were talking about. Peter shudders, tucking his face back into the turf, and then—

—“Peter, is that your _phone_?” Lydia calls. “Prokofiev? Really?”

Stiles snickers, and thank God, but he doesn’t break rhythm, either with his hands or his cock. “Gotta be Chris, I let him borrow my phone since his is still drying out,” he says, licking at the fresh scatter of bites across Peter’s shoulderblades and nape. “About time, I’m starving.”

“That’s his ringtone for _you_?” Lydia says disbelievingly. “But the wolf in that got caught.”

“Oh, come on, Lyds, it’s cute.” Stiles presses his tongue flat over an especially stinging bite, just as Peter whimpers and claws the ground and comes, and then makes a deep, rough, satisfied rumble as he lazily fucks himself to climax, too. He collapses over Peter, still purring, and absently pets Peter’s still trembling side as he catches his breath. “Anyway. Pizza, guys?”

Irritatingly, everyone else seems terribly excited about this. Even Derek, who’s staggering up in a way that is clearly not only down to Peter’s shaky vision.

“It’s gonna get cold,” Stiles says, still curled over Peter, who is damn well not moving. He laughs as Peter grumbles, then kisses softly behind Peter’s ear. “Spoiled beta. You just want to make Chris bring it out to us, don’t you?”

“Well, he’ll do it if he wants my gratitude,” Peter mutters, shifting his feet so their legs are more securely tangled together. “I even brought napkins, last month.”

Stiles laughs again, then lets his head sink so that he’s resting it in the curve of Peter’s throat. The sweat coming off his face is a little sharp on the bites there, salt prickling up whenever it falls, but then his breath comes, soft and steady, and soothes away the burn.

“Spoiled,” he says again. His hands slide down Peter’s chest and belly, then push out to grip tightly at the insides of Peter’s thighs, so tightly that Peter arches and then whimpers, stretching out his throat to placate his alpha. “Spoiled and caught, aren’t you? I get the ringtone, you know. You’re not the boy at all, are you, Peter? You’re the pretty little wolf, all snared up and kept for good.”

“Alpha,” Peter breathes, dipping his head. “Oh, yes, alpha, _please_.”

“Sweet little beta,” Stiles says to him. Pulling Peter up close, just as close as he could want, wrapping out everything but the smell of his alpha’s skin and the steady, matching beat of their hearts. “And mine for good.”

“Yes,” Peter says. And he closes his eyes, just as the wolf’s teeth sink into him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prokofiev wrote a very famous opus called _Peter and the Wolf_ , which is about a boy named Peter who catches a wolf. If a piece of classical music can be cute, it is, and I always love the duck.
> 
> ...so this is the official epilogue, and God, finally, idiots get it together. The next few chapters are just mostly porny odds 'n ends.
> 
> Also, so no, Chris gets in on the group sex too. It's just he drew the short straw for making the postcoital munchies run that month.


	12. Missing Scene: Why Chris Started Being Nice(r) to Peter

The Peter Hale Chris remembers was a slimy, underhanded son of a bitch who was always a little too friendly, like he genuinely wanted to be buddies before he stabbed you in the back, and the only reason Chris didn’t do anything about him at the time was—

Well, okay, there were a lot of reasons. His father more or less holding his family hostage while starting wars with every passing pack, and then plotting to kill all of them for power. His sister getting progressively more deranged, and going after plain, unsuspecting people just for getting in the way. Said unsuspecting people being Peter’s family, including an underage boy who Chris knew even back then was far more scared and hurt than his sullen, monosyllable attitude showed. Chris thinks he’s worked past the unhealthy guilt, and he was never about to do something as stupid as invite Peter or Derek out to the back and give them a free shot at him, but…yeah, so he’s not done owing either of them.

“But Peter’s still a jackass,” Chris says.

“But he’s _hot_ ,” his alpha says, right before slamming balls-deep into Chris’ ass.

Stiles isn’t actually shallow. Very much into enjoying himself, as much as is practical with their lives, sure, but anything else is just another one of the faces he puts on, just like the babbling bright-eyed geeky kid act that suckers out fellow alphas right and left. Under that he’s ruthless and sharp and _God_ , but he’s good at spotting people’s weak points.

He’s had Chris’ number for a very long time, to the point that honestly, Chris doesn’t even bother pretending that doesn’t get his own motor going. Maybe that’s how the family genes have decided to fuck him up, but being a werewolf, being a _beta_ werewolf, in one of the strongest, most stable packs in the region, is a lot better than being a hunter in a violently psychopathic family. Being fucked senseless by his alpha in the back of his own car is pretty damn good, too. And being held down by said alpha, wrists locked against the small of his back, sharp teeth holding his nape, two orgasms’ worth of come sticking under his belly while a third climax gets slowly, torturously dragged out of him?

Goddamn it, but Chris has missed Stiles. “Yeah, yeah, fine,” Chris pants. “He’s easy on the eyes, give you that, but damn it, alpha…”

He squirms on the other man’s cock, whining hopefully, desperate for some movement, but all that gets him is a fractionally tighter grip on his wrists. Chris hisses and Stiles laughs against his neck, hot breath a horrible tease as it cools over the bites Stiles has scattered over Chris’ shoulders. Thing is, Stiles is _careful_. Thoughtful. They’re still not out of the woods yet, literally and otherwise, and so he’s holding Chris just so it aches, so his wrists only hurt when he struggles. But if Chris keeps still, it’s all right. So it’s on Chris to do it, to be good, to try and live up to his alpha.

And his teeth, they’re nipping whenever Chris does manage to hold himself in place, little bursts of pain just enough to make Chris shiver and then stretch out his throat, but they’re right below the collar line. Aren’t going to show, not after, not when they’re dressed again. Hard to threaten people when they’re staring at your alpha’s handiwork and obviously trying to figure out whether you’re shitty with a razor or something else. So he’s looking out for Chris. He’ll make it as hard as he wants in here, but out there, they’re a single, solid pack.

“Damn it, Chris,” Stiles says, sighing, and before Chris can even finish his moan, Stiles has slumped over on top of him. Cheek resting against the back of Chris’ neck, hands still locked around Chris’ wrists but not forcing them so high. His cock moves with it and Chris shudders, he can’t help it, can’t switch beats that quickly, but that’s got nothing to do with feeling good all of a sudden. “Just, if you can’t deal with the guy, can you keep it out of the house for now? We have so much other shit going on and he’s freaking out every time I turn around. I can’t be chasing him down every night.”

Chris hears the weariness in his alpha’s voice and he instinctively whines in sympathy. Stiles rumbles in response, nuzzling at Chris’ nape, sliding his hands off Chris’ wrists and onto Chris’ hips, as if Chris really needs any steadying. He curls around as Chris twists his head to the side, then lays soft little licks along the line of Chris’ jaw, soothing and restating a claim at the same time. And Chris purrs, arches his shoulders back, spreads his legs and opens up his body under the other man as best he can, reminding Stiles that he’s here, that he’s willing, that he’s whatever Stiles needs.

The thing—a big thing, and sometimes one of the best things—about being a werewolf is how so much gets across without words. Just a press, a change in scent, a flip in a heartbeat. It’s a lot easier, letting people know how he’s feeling now, and knowing what they’re feeling.

But yeah. It doesn’t cover everything. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I can deal with him fine, him and Derek, it’s just—yeah, I was a dick,” Chris mutters. “I’ll fix it. I just—hate remembering that time. And I know, that’s not on the Hales. I’ll stop, I’ll be better. ‘m sorry, I’m not—I won’t be like the rest of my family.”

“It’s not like I’m tossing you over either,” Stiles says. He gives Chris a last lick, then pushes up on his arms. When Chris drags his own hands off his back and around by his head, confused, Stiles cups his shoulders and then skates his hands down Chris’ arms to the wrists, pinning them again, purring and sniffing at his bites as he slowly, achingly, bows his body down to press them together from shoulders to groin. His tongue works into the hollow behind Chris’ ear as Chris groans. “Still mine, still my best hunter, aren’t you?”

His weight flattens down; Chris can feel it forcing his buttocks apart, allowing Stiles to sink a little deeper into him. “Jesus,” he breathes, rucking his ass back into it. “Fuck. Fuck, it—you know that’s not—wasn’t actually—”

“Yeah, I know. You’re such a good beta that way,” Stiles says. His voice lightens a little, but it’s no less affectionate. Hell, no, it’s way in the other direction, so heavy with it that that alone makes Chris whine and shiver. “But I just wanted you to know. You know, since he’s…I kind of think he’s gonna take a lot of work.”

Even with Stiles licking at his neck again, tracing every bite, Chris focuses enough to laugh. Because yeah, Peter Hale is going to need some help. Derek, maybe not so much—Chris is trying very hard to ignore whatever his daughter is doing there, because he might still owe the Hales and he knows Allison is growing up just fine, knows what she’s doing, but he’s still her _father_ , damn it. 

But Peter. Yeah. Peter now is a twitchy, skittish, confused bundle of misfiring instincts, all wrapped up in hopeless yuppie smartass. He keeps bitching about completely the wrong thing, acting like he can just fake his way through this, and the whole time he’s staring after Stiles like a giant puppy with a law degree. And it’s not that he won’t admit it so much as he still hasn’t noticed he’s doing it, Chris thinks.

“And I gotta spend the time with him, get him settled. And yeah, okay, not going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Stiles says. He’s still laving behind Chris’ ear, purring softly, nuzzling in whenever Chris hitches. His body rolls up with the hitch and then grinds down, slowly starting up their fuck again. “I like him a lot, you know that, knew that. But I still like you, Chris. Still want you. Still bit you—”

He twists his head, claps his mouth over the edge of Chris’ shoulder, just like he did years before. And years or not, Chris can still feel it, feel the first taste of Stiles’ teeth, feel his blood slicking hotly out between them. It’d felt like dying then—he remembers, dimly, like he does his childhood when he didn’t think his father was nuts. Dimly because now, God, _now_ it feels like starting back to life, like an electric shock that spills out from that point all through him, down into his fingers and toes and then out his unsheathing claws. And he can feel everything, _everything_ , the come under him, the sweat pouring off his skin, the grit of the mud he didn’t quite scrub off the floor.

The heat of Stiles over him, the slip-stick-slide of their bodies against each other. Stiles’ breath breaking up as he keeps talking, keeps telling Chris how gorgeous he was, is, not losing a beat on the hunt after the bite. The way it catches a little in Stiles’ throat as he forces back his purrs to keep talking. The skip in Stiles’ heartbeat as he humps up over Chris, hands sliding to Chris’ elbows so he can start putting some force behind his thrusts. Stiles barely has any tells, a testament to his will as well as to his skill with masking charms, but he still has that one, that stutter just before he’s about to really fuck in.

“Still gonna come find you,” he’s saying. “Find you, run you down, take you home, Chris, so don’t make it too hard because now I gotta chase him around too. Don’t, okay?”

“Won’t, won’t, alpha, alpha,” Chris gasps, choking the words out between his whines. He scrabbles at the floor, dragging himself up to meet Stiles’ downward thrusts, whimpering too much to think about what he’s saying. Just, he thinks, just keep him. Keep him, get him to stay, alpha-pack-yes. “Alpha, please, don’t go, don’t—”

Stiles’ rhythm falters. Chris knows it’s him, knows he did something, hates himself for a second, hates himself like nothing short of his father because this is the _best_ thing he’s ever done for himself and Allison and if he loses it—

“No, no, sssh,” Stiles says. He pushes Chris back down, holds him till he stops trying to reach back, stops trying to make up for it. Deep, low, grounding rumbles coming out of him, from him into Chris, down into Chris’ bones even as they rattle and groan from the force of their fucking. “Sssh, mine, my beta, mine, always, I bit you, I wanted you, mine _mine_.”

He scratches his teeth over Chris’ shoulder. Not a bite, barely a graze, doesn’t even break skin, but it’s enough to send Chris over. 

Chris tries a last time to twist back and grab at the other man, as he’s coming down. Stiles lets him, gives Chris an arm to pull forward and wrap around, and they end up curled into the corner, breathing hard, Chris twitching as he feels Stiles’ cock slowly soften within him. He thinks it’s slipping out at one point and clenches down; Stiles swears roughly, nips his ear, and then laughs and pulls him tight against Stiles’ chest as he shamefacedly makes himself relax.

“You know it wasn’t your fault,” Stiles says after a while.

He’s not talking about Peter, or about anything that’s going on right now. “It wasn’t yours either,” Chris says after a moment. Sometimes Stiles doesn’t take that so well, but Chris is fine with dealing with that till Stiles just believes one of them when they say it. Not that he doesn’t exhale in relief when Stiles merely sighs. “So. I’ll help with Peter. Nicely.”

Stiles snorts. It’s a little disbelieving, but he kisses Chris softly on the temple right after. “You just have to not spook him.”

“Well, I can help, too. He might take some of this better coming from somebody closer to his age,” Chris says. “And at least he already knows me.”

“As an asshole he wanted to screw over,” Stiles points out. “You know, flaky as he’s being right now, he’ll get over it, and then I’m not so sure I won’t have to keep an eye on him with you, too.”

“It’ll be fine,” Chris says, absently rubbing the arms wrapped around him. He senses Stiles’ sharpened curiosity and shrugs, then looks back. “I can handle him. Sure, he’ll try, but I think it’s going to be a while. And I’ll work on him in the meantime.”

Stiles looks thoughtfully over Chris, and then he grins. “I said _nice_ ,” he says. “Just because he’s really cute when his eyes are all bugged out—oh, come on, don’t front, Chris. You’re into it.”

Chris rolls his eyes, because sometimes Stiles is just…Stiles. “Yeah. Sure.”

“You like it, you know you do,” Stiles says, like the relentless monster he is. Lapping at Chris’ neck, his hands starting to move over Chris’ belly, scratching through the itchy layers of drying come to tease at the underlying muscle. “You like him. With his big blue eyes looking all terrified, while he’s grabbing onto me and trying to hide away from the rest of you, you like it. You wanna watch me pin him and make him whine. I can smell it.”

“Goddamn it, Stiles,” Chris hisses. He grabs at Stiles’ wrists, but too late: Stiles already has a solid grip on his cock. “You really worried about _me_ being nice?”

“But you are, Chris,” Stiles coos at him. While shifting them out of the corner, so they have more room as Chris inevitably wilts for the other man. “You’re _so_ nice. Such a nice guy, such a nice beta, and you’re gonna be nice to him. I’m gonna make it worth it for you, you know, so you’re gonna be the nicest, sweetest older beta ever to our little baby lawyer wolf. Aren’t you?”

Fuck. “Yes,” Chris moans, slumping down. “Yes, alpha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get more into the Stiles/Chris dynamic but Peter's dramatic flailing already took up over 50K words, so yeah, wasn't happening in the main storyline.
> 
> And I guess I can't really help but have a little Chris/Peter vibing.


	13. Post-Fic: Laura Finds Out

“So you’re werewolves,” Laura says.

She can’t be still in doubt. They’ve run her through the app, a supplementary Powerpoint for non-weres, and then demonstrated shifts for her, repeatedly. Her heartbeat’s slowed enough that Peter doesn’t think they’ll need the sedatives after all, and while fear still lingers in her scent, it’s clearly fading in comparison to the curiosity.

“Werewolves,” she says again, just as Derek starts to speak. “My little brother’s a werewolf. And that’s why he’s stopped beating the shit out of people, and getting thrown out of bars, and growling at cops. And trashing his clothes. And—”

“What about Peter?” Derek finally snaps, scowling and running his hand through his hair.

“To be accurate, he still does three of the four, it’s just we have a whole pack skilled in covering up that sort of thing,” Peter says at the same time. He pauses, considers, and then decides he probably should revise that. “Well, as far as clothing goes, some of us try. You’ll meet Erica at dinner and then that will make sense.”

Derek glowers at Peter. “Does she have to?”

“Oh, Peter was always sort of left of center, I’m just kind of…I guess I wouldn’t have gone with werewolf, if I was gonna pick a supernatural flavor. No offense, it just seems like taking off one night a month would get in the way of your politicking,” Laura says, waving a dismissive hand.

“It’s less of a problem than you’d think,” Peter says. “Religious accommodations are enshrined in the law, after all.”

Laura blinks, then grins. She’s always been more appreciative of that sort of maneuver than Derek has been, although she tends to have moral qualms more often. “Okay, well, so my belated congratulations? Oh, and also, this makes _so_ much more sense about why you’re now banging Allison Argent and that Scott guy, bro.”

“I don’t want to know,” Derek says.

“It’s nothing bad, Derek,” Laura says, wrinkling her nose. “It’s just, like, roleplay, right? You get all upset and take off like usual, and Allison hunts you down, and Scott talks you down, and then you screw to seal the deal. It’s okay, it’s a valid therapy method aside from the sex, I’m just surprised nobody’s ever tried that one on you before.”

Derek puts his head in his hands. “Why did we want her to know again?” he mutters.

“Because I’m family, and sooner or later you’re gonna call me with some werewolf emergency,” Laura says, while slinging an arm over Derek’s neck.

It’s mostly affectionate, and anyway, that means something slightly different these days, and…Peter holds his breath, a little, and then shrugs as Derek, grumbling and glowering, allows his sister to bump their heads together. They chose Laura specifically because they thought she’d take it the best, but Peter has to admit he’s relieved it’s going _this_ well. And that Laura will happily keep this from Talia till Peter’s buttoned up his approach with his own sister.

“So,” Laura says as they head out the door, her arm still around Derek’s shoulders. “This means neither of you are going to give me shit about exorcising demons on the weekends, right? Because it _was_ just about my asshole ex, but I’m kind of into it now, and I think I might even be able to make a career out of it.”

“What,” Derek and Peter say.


	14. Post-Fic: Gratuitous Stiles/Peter porn

“Well, it’s basically a really nasty variation on your standard demon exorcism, adapted to first smush all the werewolf bits together into a separate entity. Honestly, I was really pissed off that Gerard survived it in the first place,” Stiles says, tucking one arm behind his head. He keeps his other hand lightly stroking along Peter’s spine, every upstroke ending with a brief, firm squeeze at Peter’s nape, his fingers and thumb sliding in behind Peter’s ears so Peter shivers. “He wasn’t actually supposed to make it all the way to jail. That was really annoying.”

Peter makes sympathetic noises, and also, noses at the underside of his alpha’s jaw. The next time Stiles’ hand comes up his back, it lingers long enough to scratch gently along his hairline and at the edges of the fresh claim bites dotting his throat, confirming that he’s at least got the hang of scenting. “Not a recommended solution to the bite, I take it?”

“Nope. Though we really just put it together for him, so sample size of one, with somebody who I really, really didn’t give much of a shit about where fatal side-effects were concerned, and anyway.” Stiles shrugs, then turns his head and looks down, just as his fingers sift up into Peter’s hair. “Funny that it took you this long to ask about it. Derek asked something like two weeks ago.”

“Well, Derek’s making a study of everything that can kill or permanently harm us,” Peter says. He stretches up and laps at Stiles’ chin, then at the very bottom edge of Stiles’ lower lip. When he’s tugged back, gently but decisively, he lets a low, wistful noise bubble out of him, watching Stiles’ eyes darken, and then settles his head back on Stiles’ chest. “He can be surprisingly devoted to a subject, when he’s properly motivated. Also, that week I had that board of trustees dispute and I didn’t have the time to deal with his questions, so I made him do his own research for once.”

Stiles laughs. His fingers loosen and slide almost out of Peter’s hair before curling again, moving in loose, gripping motions, pulling at Peter’s nape so Peter arches, then buries his head against the other man’s neck, whining quietly. Gestures are so much more—meaningful now. Not simply expressive, it’s not just the want and the casual possession in Stiles’ touch; it’s also the deep, deep satisfaction and the almost desperate responding surrender that Peter feels.

“So you did think about it,” Stiles says. He sounds unruffled and relaxed, and his heartbeat doesn’t stir. But then, Peter’s long since learned that reading his alpha properly takes a good deal more than that.

“Eventually. It honestly didn’t register till I was reading that history book you lent me, the chapter on the dissolution of the Lafitte pack,” Peter says after a moment. He can feel his own heartbeat speeding up a little, but doesn’t attempt to hide that. Just presses his nose and mouth into Stiles’ skin and breathes till the smell of the man calms him. “Chris told me about your reversing Gerard’s bite, oh, the second day after I turned, but considering everything else that was going on, I think I can be forgiven for missing some of the implications.”

“Forgiven. Okay, yeah, I guess you can think of it that way,” Stiles says. He grips Peter a little more tightly, then smooths his fingertips over the spots, rubbing till Peter’s placating whimper turns to a purr. “Sorry, wasn’t thinking. Anyway—”

“Anyway, by the time I did, it was purely an academic consideration.” Peter pauses, then tentatively nuzzles into Stiles’ neck. He pauses again as Stiles resumes massaging his nape, then shifts up and over, so he can turn the nuzzling into light, soft kisses.

He doesn’t bite, doesn’t let even a whisper of teeth out. Doesn’t need the hand on his neck to warn him, remind him, but he wants it there. Wants the hold, the feeling of being watched, being minded. Being _handled_ , God, and he never would have expected that to be welcome, let alone send heated shivers down his body, but it does, it is.

Peter gets to the edge of Stiles’ jaw, one kiss short of the other man’s mouth, and then, as he’d been betting on, he’s rolled over. Stiles gives him the last kiss, but with him on his back, throat offered up, wrists pinned to either side of his head, and it is nothing short of glorious.

“So gone already, huh,” Stiles says, a little breathless. He pulls up to nip at the outline of Peter’s mouth, teasing, provoking begging noises that Peter would give him anyway, but it’s better when he’s dragging them out.

He shifts his hold on Peter’s wrists to one hand, uses his other to plant claims all along Peter’s body. Cupping the side of Peter’s neck, the one he prefers to bite. Splaying over Peter’s chest, thumb firmly pushing down a still-sore nipple as Peter gasps and twists. Gripping a hip, hauling it up, and then rounding Peter’s buttock as his fingers probe deeply over its curve, as if he hasn’t already opened Peter up twice in the last hour.

“So fucking gone, weren’t you,” he says, laughs, nips. He kisses Peter again, then nudges up Peter’s lolling head, dips under to taste at Peter’s throat. “You didn’t even know. Poor confused little beta, you didn’t know yet, but you could feel it, couldn’t you? Feel it already, that soon after.”

And gestures, thank God, carry enough weight these days that Peter doesn’t have to care that he loses his words so easily, reverts so quickly to helpless moans and shivers. He just has to press up, has to rub himself all over his alpha, his need soaking out of his skin and into the air around him, and even as he’s whimpering, Stiles’ mouth is closing over his throat.

“You’re mine, you knew that already,” Stiles whispers, holding him. Cock seating itself up along his perineum, hands locked over his thigh and his wrists, mouth wrapped over his pulse. “Mine. Pack, yeah, pack, but I could tie you out in the living room and let everybody slide all over you. Get you scented up, right, that’s pack. Get you smelling everybody but you. Get their mouths on you, on your nipples, that’d be good, get them sucking whenever I’m not around to do it, keep you nice and hard and soaking. Yeah, that’d make you pack, all right.”

He sucks along Peter’s neck as Peter begs for it, spreading his legs, wordless ragged mewls escaping him. He’s not touching Peter’s chest, there’s nothing but his body heat grazing Peter’s nipples but _God_ , Peter arches as if he can already feel those mouths, feel them nursing and nipping and tormenting, and if Stiles asked him to. Told him to, right now, told him to go down and lay out and tie himself up, he’d do it.

“But you’re not just pack, Peter, oh, no, you’re not,” Stiles tells him. Still licking at Peter’s neck, licking, not biting, even when Peter tries to push himself onto the other man’s teeth. Stiles just laughs and holds him back from it, holds him and then kisses him, so light it’s worse than a blow. “No, no, you’re not, and I don’t do that because fuck it, I’m alpha, I love my pack but some things I just fucking _want_. And you, you, you’re one of them and you’re mine, _mine_ —”

Peter cries out, twisting against Stiles’ hands. He’s coming, he’s shaking, he can’t even move his hands when Stiles lets go of him, he’s coming so hard, and he’s still shaking when Stiles fucks his cock back into Peter.

“Oh, you knew it,” Stiles says. He knows Peter can’t move, can’t even think about it, and he takes his time seating himself. He rises back up over Peter, fits his hand over Peter’s crossed wrists again, right into the dents in the sheets he’d left, and then he bends down and his teeth graze Peter’s throat. “You knew, all right. Mine.”

Yes. Oh, yes, Peter did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got to the end and then realized that 1) I'd written in an out to the whole werewolf turning thing and 2) Peter and Derek are plausibly too discombobulated to pay much attention to it at the time, but eventually they'd pick up on it and 3) Stiles could use a little more vulnerability here, so I don't accidentally make him into Deus Ex Machina Alpha.
> 
> ...also, I occasionally get stuck on a kink and nipple play is apparently the current one.


End file.
